Heat Energy Transfer – Nanomaterial, Nanofluid for Heating & Cooling

Fully funded for UK or EU students

Inter disciplinary research –chemical and engineering science graduate welcome

With the global requirement for energy consumption increasing efforts to find alternative energy source as well as to increase the efficiency of available energy usage are in now paramount. Conventional water heat systems are the most common space heating used in higher latitudes and consume relatively larger amount of energy. In comparison water cooling and electronic micro cooling also present a similar problem of efficiency. Thus, specialised means are required to reduce energy consumption and improve heat transfer efficiency in both cooling and heating.
The development of stabilised formulations with nanomaterial or nanofluid have the potential to not only to influence heating but also cooling requirement. Nanoparticles have novel and diverse applications as a result of their interesting properties related to surface area, size, the shape and atomic composition

The aim here is to determine the potential influence of heat transfer additives to water in an effort to determine routes to improving heat energy transfer properties of nanomaterial & surfactant formulations. This interdisciplinary research requires the expertise in nanomaterials, heat transfer engineering, thermal conductivity, surface interaction and formulation. Also the ability to design experiment and have computational fluid dynamics knowledge would be added advantage. Toward the aim to understand and obtain improved heat energy transfer formulations a number of physical techniques would be utilised including electron microscopy, AFM, surface tension, contact angle (CA) and light scattering. The influence of the metal surface nano or micro structure as related to surfactants interaction at surface as well as surface nucleation initiation would be investigated. The candidate would develop feasible nanoparticle synthesis protocols and relevant experiments for heat transfer using for example thermal conductivity measurement.

Closing date of 17th-12-2019 with interviews in week of 15th-01-2020

This is a collaborative effort between UWS & University of Glasgow. We are looking for enthusiastic and outstanding candidates with a good degree or masters within chemical engineering or chemistry relevant to this project, an excellent attitude to collaborative research, attention to detail, ability to withstand a fast learning curve, good communication skills and most importantly, creative enthusiasm.

Funding Notes
This fully-funded PhD scholarship is available to students from the UK and EU. The studentship offers an annual stipend for three years and payment of the tuition