Sustainable Catalytic Science and Engineering Through Hydrothermal Synthesis

催化在能源和化学工业中起着关键作用，超过90%的产品在合成中使用催化剂;因此，该行业是毕业工程师和化学家的主要雇主。然而，随着社会朝着减少对化石资源的依赖的方向发展，需要开发用于可持续制造的新型催化加工路线和新型催化剂。该项目将探索热液方法在这一领域取得突破性进展的潜力。与环境条件相比，水在高温高压下的行为非常不同。值得注意的是，它失去了它的“水性”特性，变得能够溶解有机材料，并且可以同时充当溶剂、反应物和催化剂。该项目将建立在我们小组以前的工作基础上，以了解这些影响，并将高温水用作反应的介质，例如（i）从废物原料（例如生物质或二氧化碳）合成石化类产品;（ii）废物流（例如废水）的催化升级;以及（iii）合成低成本，高效的化学加工催化剂。这是一个真正新颖的研究领域，具有广泛的应用，它建立在研究小组以前的工作基础上。成功的申请人将获得催化测试、分析、催化剂合成和材料表征方面的广泛经验，这将确保他们为未来在工业或学术界占据一席之地做好充分准备。

Catalysis plays a key role in the energy and chemical industries with over 90% of products employing a catalyst in their synthesis; as such the sector is a major employer of graduate engineers and chemists. As society moves towards reducing its reliance on fossil sources however, novel catalytic processing routes and novel catalysts for sustainable manufacturing are required to be developed. This project will explore the potential of hydrothermal approaches to make a disruptive advance in this area.Water behaves very differently under high temperature and pressure as compared to ambient conditions. Notably, it loses its "aqueous" character becoming capable of dissolving organic material and can act as a solvent, reactant and catalyst simultaneously. This project will build on previous work in our group to understand these effects and apply high temperature water as a medium for reactions such as (i) the synthesis of petrochemical-type products from waste feedstocks (e.g. biomass or carbon dioxide); (ii) the catalytic upgrading of waste streams (e.g. wastewater); and (iii) the synthesis of low-cost, high-effectiveness catalysts for chemical processing. This is genuinely novel area of research, with wide-ranging applications, which builds on previous work within the research group. A successful applicant will gain a broad range of experience on catalytic testing, analysis, catalyst synthesis and materials characterisation which will ensure that they are well equipped to take-up a future position in industry or academia.