About the Project
Investigate how chemicals are transformed and removed as they travel through sewer networks, combining real-world monitoring, environmental chemistry and modelling to improve predictions of their eventual release into the environment.
Are you passionate about solving complex environmental challenges? Interested in creating non-toxic environments that benefit society and nature alike? This innovative and exciting PhD project, co-designed with non-academic partners, is part of the NERC-funded ECOSOLUTIONS Doctoral Focal Award, and offers the opportunity to address real world challenges with key opinion-formers to help support sustainable chemical development and create non-toxic urban & rural landscapes.
Project details:
The sewer network represents an important but relatively under-characterised stage in the environmental journey of many chemicals. Physical, chemical and biological processes occurring between release and arrival at wastewater treatment facilities can remove or transform chemicals, yet these processes are often only partially represented within environmental exposure assessments. This creates uncertainty around the contribution of in-sewer attenuation to predicted environmental exposure of chemicals.
This PhD will investigate how in-sewer processes influence chemical emissions to wastewater treatment systems and the wider environment. New monitoring data will be generated using automated sampling approaches to characterise how biodegradation, sorption, transformation and other attenuation processes affect chemical concentrations over time and space. Monitoring may be complemented by laboratory or pilot-scale studies to better understand the mechanisms responsible for observed chemical removal.
The resulting datasets will be used to evaluate how in-sewer attenuation can be represented within environmental exposure models and to identify the factors that most strongly influence model performance. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding variability, identifying transferable principles across chemical types and sewer catchments, and improving the realism of exposure assessment.
By combining environmental monitoring, environmental chemistry, biodegradation science, and modelling, the project will generate new evidence on an under-studied component of chemical fate. The outcome will be improved understanding of how in-sewer processes influence environmental exposure and how they can be incorporated into future exposure assessment frameworks, reducing uncertainty and making better use of monitoring data in environmental decision-making.
The ECOSOLUTIONS DFA
Led by the Universities of Sheffield and York and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, ECOSOLUTIONS is a cutting-edge, transdisciplinary initiative. This innovative programme combines science, policy, and societal engagement to transform chemicals policy and management, enabling a safe, sustainable chemicals sector and non-toxic environments. This project is one of 19 projects that are available for the third ECOSOLUTIONS and final cohort who will work together to begin to understand and solve the problems of sustainable chemical design and use, as well tackling the problems that pollution causes in urban environments, rural landscapes and food systems.
What You will Gain
As an ECOSOLUTIONS PhD student, you will work with world-leading experts across diverse fields such as ecology, data science, digital solutions, chemistry, geography, psychology, environmental engineering, policy, and law. You will learn to tackle the risks posed by chemicals while enabling their societal benefits, adopting a whole-systems and solutions-focused approach.
You will receive 3 years and 9 months of funding and take part in a dynamic training and development programme, including:
- Induction course: Connect with fellow students, supervisors, and the ECOSOLUTIONS team while exploring the programme's mission.
- Primer course: Gain foundational knowledge on the environmental risks that chemicals pose, policy landscapes, and sustainable chemical innovation.
- Transferable skills workshops: Master data management, big data methods, research practices, communication, stakeholder engagement and more.
- Systems-solutions workshops: Collaborate across disciplines to explore sustainable chemical design and development, address pollution in urban & rural landscapes, and develop actionable solutions.
- Three-month secondment: Unilever
- International conferences: Share your findings and network with global experts.
The skills you will need
To do this project you will need the following essential skills:
- A strong background in environmental science, chemistry, environmental engineering, microbiology, or a related discipline.
- Practical laboratory and/or environmental monitoring experience.
- Strong quantitative and data analysis skills.
- Ability to work independently and manage complex datasets.
- An interest in chemical fate, wastewater systems, environmental modelling, or exposure assessment.
Eligibility:
To be considered for the ECOSOLUTIONS DFA, you will need at least an upper 2nd class honours degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline.
As a collaboration of international research-led universities, we welcome students from all walks of life and from across the world. Within our programme, we are dedicated to diversifying our community.
As part of our ongoing work to improve Equality, Diversity and Inclusion we strongly encourage applications from UK/Home candidates from identified underrepresented groups: Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, those from a disadvantaged socio-economic background, and disabled people.
Start Your Research Career with ECOSOLUTIONS:
This PhD is part of the ECOSOLUTIONS Doctoral Focal Award (DFA), a prestigious NERC-funded program dedicated to training the next generation of environmental practitioners. For more details and a full list of other PhD projects under this programme, visit: https://ecosolutions.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/
Application Web Page:
For more information on how to apply, please visit the ECOSOLUTIONS website: https://ecosolutions.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/
Project specific enquiries: Dr John Wilkinson, john.wilkinson@york.ac.uk
Funding Notes
This is a full scholarship which will cover tuition fees and provide an annual stipend in line with UKRI recommended levels (£21,805 for the 2026/2027 academic year, TBC in 2027/2028) for the 45 months duration.
Due to CDT funding rules and Institutional policies, there is a cap on the number of scholarships that can be awarded to DFA students. Once this limit has been reached, ECOSOLUTIONS DFA scholarships will only be awarded to students who are eligible for Home fee status. York and UKCEH led projects can only fund applications from UK/Home eligible applicants and Sheffield can accept applications from both with very limited places for international students.