PhD Studentship Available to start September 2015

Application of RFID system to support Fuel Cell End of life Recovery
Ref No.:2015CDTEIMM4

A Hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical device that generates electricity through a chemical reaction. The only emission is water and for this reason hydrogen fuel cells have become increasingly popular in the automotive industry as a means of providing low carbon and efficient propulsion for vehicles. This year, Hyundai and Toyota will both release the first ever commercially available, mainstream Hydrogen fuel cell cars, with production rates of around 1000 vehicles in the first year. This marks a market switch towards the use of more Fuel cells in mainstream vehicle applications. It is anticipated that by 2030 the number of Hydrogen Fuel cell vehicles on the road in the UK will be approximately 1.3 million, with sales in excess of 300,000 per annum (UKH2Mobility).

The aim of the PhD will be to generate new knowledge to support the development of RFID systems to enable effective End of life decision making for Fuel Cells once they reach the end of their life. This research will seek to identify how better RFID systems can be developed to support both remanufacturing and recycling of Hydrogen fuel cells.

This project will be carried out as part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Embedded Intelligence and is co-sponsored by HSSMI.

Embedded Intelligence is characterised as the ability of a product, process or service to reflect on its own operational performance, usage load, or in relation to the end-user or environment in terms of satisfactory experience. This self-reflection is facilitated by information collected by sensors and processed locally or remotely to derive insight. These aspects must be considered from the design stage such as to enhance product lifetime and performance, increase quality of process or service delivery, or ensure customer satisfaction and market acceptance.

This Centre, in collaboration with HSSMI, offers an attractive package, including a tax free stipend of up to £17k pa (equivalent £24k tax free), in addition to full University PhD registration fees for British and EU candidates. Overseas applicants are expected to finance the residual annual PhD fees which are in excess of the home student fees. Additionally, there is a generous personal development budget of £10,000 for the specific training needs of the successful candidate. The Centre offers a unique 4-year Ph.D. programme, drawing on expertise in postgraduate teaching and research supervision in the fields of sensors, system design, embedded software and systems, manufacturing systems, novel manufacturing processing, applications engineering and systems services. The PhD candidate will be supported by the state-of-the-art facilities at HSSMI and Loughborough University.

A high calibre candidate with first or upper second class (2:1) degree in Mechanical, manufacturing, electronic, electrical, systems engineering is sought. It is expected that the candidate would have good experimental and computational skills and a strong interest in system integration, product life cycle and monitoring, and knowledge management.

Further information can be obtained from Dr Radmehr Monfared, e-mail: r.p.monfared<στο>lboro.ac.uk

The deadline for applications is 31^st May 2015.

Please quote Ref No.:2015CDTEIMM4 on your application. Apply herehttp://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/apply/research/