Towards Sustainable Chemical Protection: A Multiscale Understanding of Molecule Retention in Filtration Materials
About the Project
The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Sustainable Chemical Technologies: A Systems Approach (CSCT) at the University of Bath is offering a fully-funded, 4-year studentship to start in September 2026. Subject to contract, this project will be in collaboration with Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). The CSCT equips scientists and engineers to deliver innovative chemical solutions. As part of a cohort of researchers passionate about sustainable science and engineering, you’ll undertake a 4-year Integrated PhD programme including an MRes that blends taught modules with two research projects, each in a different discipline.
The PhD project will combine advanced materials characterisation, molecular simulation, and adsorption science to understand how porous materials capture and retain representative molecules relevant to chemical protection applications. Working in collaboration with Dstl, the research will focus on porous adsorbents (carbons, MOFs, zeolites and others) used in protective filtration technologies, where performance depends on complex interactions between molecules, adsorption sites, and transport pathways within the material.
Despite their widespread use, the molecular processes governing adsorption, diffusion, and retention remain poorly understood. This limits our ability to improve material performance, extend operational lifetime, develop regeneration strategies, and make more efficient use of material resources. The project will investigate how interactions between molecules, active sites, and metal impregnants influence adsorption behaviour, how these interactions affect transport through porous networks, and how both ultimately determine filtration performance.
A unique aspect of this project is the opportunity to connect molecular interactions, nanoscale transport processes, and filtration performance. These phenomena are often investigated separately, making it difficult to understand how behaviour at one scale influences performance at the next. The project will combine experimental and computational approaches to bridge these scales and develop a more complete understanding of how porous filtration materials function.
The successful candidate will use spectroscopy and quantum mechanical calculations to investigate adsorption structures and energetics, while molecular dynamics simulations and neutron scattering measurements will probe molecular transport and diffusion within confined pore systems. These studies will be complemented by adsorption, breakthrough, and filtration measurements, enabling direct links to be established between molecular behaviour and filtration performance.
The successful candidate will help to gain fundamental understanding of how adsorption, diffusion, and material structure combine to determine filtration performance. Beyond chemical protection technologies, the approaches developed during the PhD will have broader relevance to gas separation, pollution control, environmental remediation, and sustainable separation processes.
Keywords: chemical engineering, computational chemistry, materials science, physical chemistry, solid state physics
Find Your Best Opportunity
Tell them AcademicJobs.com sent you!
