Applications for our undergraduate vacation studentship scheme are now open!
Closing date: Friday 25 April 2025
About the scheme
The scheme aims to encourage students to consider a career in Chemical Engineering/Chemistry. During the scheme, selected undergraduate students will be based at either Newcastle University or University of York for the duration of 6-8 weeks over the summer to complete a short-term research project within the Chemical Engineering or Chemistry discipline.
Eligibility
Students must meet the following criteria to be eligible for the scheme:
- Be undertaking their first undergraduate degree studies (on integrated Masters).
- Be expected to obtain a first or upper second-class UK honours degree.
- Be eligible for subsequent EPSRC PhD funding within PINZ CDT (ie. UK or right to remain in the UK).
- Be in their penultimate year of studies.
Applications
To be considered for this opportunity, please apply to pinzcdt@newcastle.ac.uk by the closing date of 25 April 2025. You should provide the following:
- A cover letter with details of the project you would like to be considered for and reasons for applying.
- A CV.
- A reference from your personal tutor.
- A copy of your latest transcript.
Selection process and timescales
Applications will be screened for suitability and nominated candidates will be shared with the PINZ CDT panel. Successful candidates will be notified no later than 6th June 2025.
Payment
Students will be paid for their placement via their host institution. Both partner universities pay hourly rates which is based on the national living wage (£12.22 per hour).
Reporting
Following the placement, students will be required to prepare a summary report based on the outcome of their placement.
Available Projects:
Placement Title: Upscale of exsolved catalysts for biogas reforming
Location: School of Engineering, Newcastle University
Industry Partner: Northumbrian Water Ltd
Supervisors: Dr Wenting Hu and Dr Evangelos Papaioannou
Placement Description:
Recently, the production of constrained nanoparticles via exsolution has been developed as a novel platform to produce tuneable arrays of emergent nanoparticles, intended as catalysts in small-scale devices. Exsolved nanoparticles are socketed and confined into the oxide support surface, a feature that seems to unlock superior functionality inaccessible through conventional synthesis routes1. This approach also brings new opportunities for the efficient utilisation of biogas as a clean energy source at a large scale, including the dry reforming of biogas, which would otherwise rely on expensive platinum-group metals. However, this new class of catalysts still faces several major challenges related to scaling up, namely low internal surface areas due to intrinsic material properties necessary for industrial-scale applications, costly and energy-intensive synthesis routes, among others. This project aims to develop low-cost exsolved nickel catalysts that can overcome the above challenges and can be produced at scale. This work proposes to develop thin-film heterostructures on catalyst supports that can be exsolved under mild, energy-efficient conditions. The catalysts will be tested in the dry reforming of biogas in the presence of poisoning species as part of a collaboration with Howdon Sewage Treatment Works (part of Northumbrian Water Ltd) to find new applications for biogas produced by sewage sludge treatment.
1. D. Neagu, E.I. Papaioannou, W.K.W. Ramli, D.N. Miller, B.J. Murdoch, H. Ménard, A. Umar, A.J. Barlow, P.J. Cumpson, J.T.S. Irvine, I.S. Metcalfe, ‘Demonstration of chemistry at a point through restructuring and catalytic activation at anchored Nanoparticles’, Nature Communications 8: 1855, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01880-y.
Placement Title: Predicting the onset of powder caking
Location: School of Engineering, Newcastle University
Industry Partner: Syngenta
Supervisors: Dr Colin Hare
Placement Description:
Products in the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food, commodity chemicals (and many more) sectors are often in powder form. Throughout production and end usage its essential that these powders can flow relatively easily, however exposure to elevated temperature and humidity throughout production, transportation and use can result in problematic caking occurring. Everyday examples of caking include powder detergents forming large clumps when stored under a sink, or the lumps seen in a jar of hot chocolate powder or flour. On the industrial scale though, this problem can lead to blockages, process downtime and wasted product. In this lab-based project supported by Syngenta, you will use a commercial powder rheometer to develop a new methodology for predicting the critical environmental conditions for caking to occur. The new approach will aid in formulation and process design.
Placement Title: Exploration of ‘greener’ oxidation condition
Location: Department of Chemistry, University of York
Supervisors: Prof Helen Sneddon
Placement Description:
Previous work by GSK and the ACS GCI PR has looked at whether recommendations for “greener” reaction conditions can be made for certain common synthetic transformations. Use of computational tools to explore literature scope is proposed, followed by further medium / high throughput screening of some less well used, arguably greener, conditions to try to overcome the inherent biases in the literature – where precedent builds up simply based on people defaulting to tried and tested protocols.
Placement Title: Greener Peptide Synthesis
Location: Department of Chemistry, University of York
Supervisors: Prof Helen Sneddon
Placement Description: Solid phase peptide synthesis, first developed in the 1960s, has been hugely important in facilitating on demand synthesis of almost any peptide, with really high coupling efficiencies, and really impressive levels of purity. But all the necessary washings involved in each coupling and deprotection means synthesising 1 kilogram of peptide by a solid phase route, can take 13 000 kilograms of material – mainly solvent. At present the solvent usually used in dimethyl formamide which is reprotoxic. Previous work at the UoY has focused on exploring greener, more benign, alternative solvents to DMF in this process., In addition we now have work ongoing looking at more efficient coupling conditions that can be conducted in these newer solvent mixtures (typically propylene carbonate and ethyl acetate, or propylene carbonate and tetramethyloxolane). What this placement would focus on is the use of smaller, more atom efficient amine protecting groups, and how these can be removed in these more benign solvent mixtures. Whilst initially consisting of screening of reaction conditions in solution phase, it is to be hoped that the work could subsequently be applied to solid phase synthesis, and that analysis of the conditions, yields, purities would confirm whether this was likely to be a robust, widely applicable greener alternative or not.
Placement Title: Flexibility in Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) Systems
Location: School of Engineering, Newcastle University
Industry Partner: SSE Thermal
Supervisors: Dr Greg A. Mutch and Dr Wenting Hu
Placement Description:
As Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are deployed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, operational flexibility becomes a challenge. This project will investigate how fluctuations in CO₂ capture processes, especially during startup, shutdown, and load changes, affect the quality of captured CO₂ and its impact on downstream transport and storage. Process flexibility is essential to accommodate variations in power demand, intermittent renewable energy integration, and economic factors influencing plant operation. However, such variations can lead to changes in the captured CO₂ stream, affecting its compression, transport efficiency, and long-term storage integrity. The project will analyse how dynamic operational conditions influence CO2 stream quality, assessing the effects on e.g., pipeline transport, geochemical interactions in storage sites, and potential safety concerns. Through simulations and literature analysis, we aim to define key operational guidelines that balance capture efficiency with downstream process requirements. The findings will support the development of CCS systems that are not only effective in reducing emissions but also resilient to operational changes, ensuring safe, cost-effective, and sustainable long-term carbon storage.
Placement Title: Biorenewable Detergents
Location: School of Engineering, Newcastle University
Industry Partner: P&G
Supervisors: Dr Fernando Russo Abegao and Professor Kamelia Boodhoo
Placement Description:
Fast moving consumer goods, such as fabric and home care products, have a high market volume and can contribute positively for industrial and consumer sustainability. This summer internship is co sponsored by Procter and Gamble and will be focused on testing the viability of making a novel detergent building block through a circular economy approach. You will learn about catalyst preparation
and test a green reaction to convert a biomass-based molecule into a biorenewable monomer. There will be opportunities to learn about analytical techniques to characterise the catalyst and/or reaction products.
Placement Title: Recovery of ammonia from waste waters
Location: School of Engineering, Newcastle University
Industry Partner: MetZero
Supervisors: Dr Richard Law and Dr Elizabeth Heidrich
Placement Description:
Ammonia is a common pollutant in industrial and municipal wastewater, leading to algal blooms, dissolved oxygen depletion, and toxicity of aquatic life. In addition, conventional ammonia production is highly energy-intensive, accounting for 2% of total final energy consumption globally. This results in significant greenhouse gas emissions and a large carbon footprint (1.3% of global CO2 emissions).
Our innovative approach uses microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) to extract ammonia, the environmental impact of wastewater discharge can be significantly reduced. This aligns with the growing demand for more sustainable and resource-efficient wastewater treatment technologies. In this project we will test and optimise this process through improved reactor configuration and operational parameters, understand its limits. This can be used to inform basic models of the amount of resource available. It will be multidisciplinary working across chemical and environmental engineering.
This work will be supported by METzero Technologies, a Newcastle University spin-out company which aims to become the leading provider of industrial size Microbial Electrochemical Technologies that will be implemented in wastewater treatment plants globally. The expansion of MET applications into ammonia recovery, if successful, offers a promising commercial avenue with great positive environmental impact.
Yesterday we hosted 65 people from over 30 businesses for the first PINZ Conference at Newcastle University!
The PINZ team, including our colleagues from University of York, delivered a series of talks and discussions about the Process Industries and how we are training our PhD students to be able to work towards making Net Zero a reality. We also heard directly from our students about their projects and what they hope to achieve over the next four years.
Our PINZ CDT Co-directors Professor Adam Harvey and Professor Helen Sneddon opened the day with a welcome talk, giving an insight in to the formation of the PINZ CDT and how the Process Intensification Group at Newcastle and the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence came together. This was followed by our special guest speaker, Jon Hetherington from NEPIC, who delivering an excellent session on the North East Process Sector and set the scene for an amazing day.
We also had sessions on the range of training opportunities that are provided for our students, and our approach and commitment to ensuring EDI best practice is followed throughout the student journey. Delegates heard directly from our first cohort of students, discussing their aims and hopes for the wide range of projects they are working on, and also took part in an interactive cocreation session, looking at the challenges facing the industry and how we can work together to make improvements for the future.
Thank you to everyone who attended this conference – we will be holding more events in the future so if you’d like to attend please follow our LinkedIn page for updates here.
Thanks to Biofuel Evolution, Huber Uk Temperature Control Ltd, Asynt and HORIBA UK LIMITED for joining us as exhibitors and making sure our Stephenson building foyer was buzzing throughout the day.
