Advanced nanoporous materials for water purification

The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures focuses on advancing sustainability research and connecting it with the policy debate around how humans can live in a more sustainable way.
grantham.sheffield.ac.uk

We are recruiting Scholars who will combine outstanding intellect with a strong commitment to public engagement, leadership and action. These ambitious individuals will complete interdisciplinary PhD research projects to help solve the challenges of sustainability. They will be supported by the Centre through a unique training programme, designed to equip them with the skills to become policy advocates and leaders in sustainability matters.

Your application for this studentship should be accompanied by a CV and a 200 word supporting statement. Your statement should outline your aspirations and motivation for studying in the Grantham Centre, outlining any relevant experience.

Please select ’Standard PhD’ and the Department of Chemistry. Fill in the title of your desired project and the name(s) of the supervisors’. The starting date of the PhD will be the start of the next academic year - 1 Oct 2017. The ’Funding stage’ on the form will be ’project studentship’.

The provision of clean water is a global issue with societal, health, and economic implications. In fact, lack of clean drinking water affects millions of people worldwide and it is estimated that about only 10% of population in the world have access to clean water sources.
This project aims to develop novel heterogeneous catalysts with nanopores for the abatement of organic contaminants under mild conditions. These materials will provide significant improvements to water quality with an immediate impact on the health of large numbers of people.
A distinctive aspect of this project is the development of rigid foams for the deposition of zeolites crystals to increase the capability of these materials to process large volumes of water for large scale applications. This part of the project will make use of fast acoustic methods for pore size determination, which will be validated against conventional chemical adsorption methods.

This project consists of following phases of work: (i) development and coating or rigid foams for the deposition of zeolites crystals; (ii) incorporation of active metal centres inside the zeolite framework; (iii) catalytic tests in liquid phase for the decomposition of oxygenated aromatics, and chlorinated compounds, by using chromatographic techniques as characterization tools; and (iv) control and quantification of the porosity of the rigid foam by using advanced acoustic methods, and loop into improved catalysts design.
Parts (i) to (iii) will be carried out at the Chemistry Department at the University of Sheffield, under the supervision of Dr. Marco Conte, whereas phase (iv) will be carried out at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the same institution under the supervision of Prof. Kirill Horoshenkov.
All these stages will be supported via a collaboration with the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia, via the Department of Inorganic Chemistry, (Dr. Rino Mukti and Dr. Veinardi Suendo), who will provide expertise in electron microscopy, infrared and porosimetry methods.
The applicant is expected to be in possession of a first degree (or equivalent title) in chemistry by the start of the project, and to have knowledge of microporous/nanoporous materials; especially in the synthesis of zeolites and their characterization using X-ray diffraction and importantly porosimetry methods. A background in catalysis would be beneficial, involving testing of catalytic materials with particular emphasis for liquid phase systems, peroxide chemistry, and chromatographic techniques.

Key words:
Applied catalysis, nanopores, water treatment, X-ray diffraction, porosimetry, chromatography