UK: Fully funded PhD Studentship

This fully funded studentship is available to start in 2010, under the supervision of Prof Manfred Bochmann, in the internationally recognised School of Chemistry, UEA Norwich. The project is funded by the European Commission.

UK/EU APPLICANTS ONLY ARE ELIGIBLE FOR THIS FUNDING (this is because of the eligibility rules of the funding body)

Project description:

Funding is available for UK/EU students. Funding awarded for this project will cover tuition fees and stipend. International students will not be eligible for this funding however they are still welcome to apply for the project but would have to find alternative funding.

This studentship is funded by the EU Framework 7 under the Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and New Production Technologies call. Methylaluminoxane (MAO) is an industrially used standard activator for olefin polymerisation catalysts.

This multidisciplinary project is part of an EU-funded consortium consisting of spectroscopists, synthetic and computational chemists, industrial MAO producers and polyolefin manufacturers.

The project combines fundamental reactivity studies with modelling and applied aspects. It will appeal particularly to candidates with an interest in spectroscopic and kinetic techniques and catalytic reactions with an international industrial perspective. The main target is to improve the performance of MAO, by understanding and controlling the methods of its production and getting insight into its complex structure.

This project will start apply vibrational (FT-IR, FT-Raman) spectroscopy and matrix isolation to study fundamental reactions of trimethylaluminium with water, and to detect fundamental reaction products en-route to MAO formation. In collaboration with an MAO producer, the catalytic performance of modified MAO will be quantified using on-line methods for quantifying polymerisation kinetics. This will be complemented by synthetic and structural studies on modified aluminoxanes.

Contact:

For informal enquiries about this position please contact Prof Manfred Bochmann at m.bochmann@uea.ac.uk or the Faculty of Science Admissions Office at sci.pgr.admiss@uea.ac.uk or +44 (0) 1603 593002 .

How to apply:

An application can be downloaded from our website at http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/admissions/courses/PG Completed application forms should be submitted to the Admissions Office, Faculty of Science, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ.

The deadline for receipt of completed applications is Friday 19^th November 2010.