Description
UK industry is currently facing a billion pound challenge to find successful materials substitution for hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI)-based anti-corrosion agents in organic coated metals. Cr(VI) use has been assigned a “sunset” date of September 2017 by the European union, after which it will be banned. As such there is an urgent need to identify new, environmentally-friendly corrosion inhibitive technologies showing equivalent, if not better protective capability.
This programme of doctoral research seeks to incorporate new self-healing materials, such as ceramic nano-containers, hydrogen-bonded microcapsule reservoirs or conducting polymers into model organic coatings to identify promising Cr(VI) pigment replacements. In such technologies, self-healing agents are stored until their release is triggered by either the presence of aggressive ions, a change in pH/potential or mechanical damage to the organic coating. The programme of work will exploit world-leading expertise in advanced electrochemical scanning techniques coupled with high throughput methodologies to quantify corrosion protection efficiency and provide mechanistic understanding of inhibition mechanisms. The main thrust of the work will be to protect technologically important light alloy surfaces, typically aluminium and magnesium aerospace alloy grades, although the best performing technologies may also be applied to the protection of steel.
The successful student will join an exciting research community in one of the UK's leading engineering departments. The latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), ranked Engineering at Swansea as 8th in the UK overall. The academic supervisor for this PhD project will be Professor Geraint Williams.
Nr of positions available : 1
Research Fields
Engineering - Materials Engineering
Career Stage
Early stage researcher or 0-4 yrs (Post graduate)
Research Profiles
First Stage Researcher (R1)
Benefits
The studentship covers the full cost of UK/EU tuition fees, plus a tax free stipend at RCUK levels (currently 13,863 p.a.) for 3 years subject to satisfactory progress.