Transforming plastic waste into devices for water treatment

A PhD project is available to transform plastic waste into devices for water purification. The successful applicant will work closely together with a collaborative network of researchers designing next-generation filters to remove organic, inorganic and metallic toxicants and pollutants from various waste water streams.

Project Overview

Key environmental issues plaguing our living environment include plastic pollution and the lack of clean water supplies due to industrial and agricultural activities, and natural contamination of water resources. We hypothesize that these problems can be simultaneously overcome by converting plastic waste into devices that can be employed for water treatment via adsorption, absorption and filtration. This hypothesis will be validated in this PhD project via the following ambitious research objective:
- Devise green methods for recycling plastic waste
- Sustainable development of cost-effective water purification devices from plastic waste that surpass the performances of state-of-the-art materials
- Simplify current processes in water purification and plastics recycling to encourage widespread uptake of novel technologies developed here

The PhD candidate will fulfil these research objectives through:

- Employing non-hazardous and energy efficient protocols to recycle different types of plastic waste
- Benchmark new materials against commercial products to provide valuable insight to real-world scientific problems
- Work with industrial partners to ensure alignment of research outcomes with industrial expectations

Research and Training

This research will oversee the discovery of new protocols to recycle plastic waste and its transformation into a product viable for industry-scale water purification. The candidate will also work closely with UK-based industrial partners, and international partners like CSIRO Australia. This is an exceptional opportunity for PhD students that will encompass:

- Collaboration with industries and a large interdisciplinary network of world-class researchers
- Opportunities to present latest data in national/international conferences
- Discovery and development of new materials that will benefit targeted applications