PhD Studentship in Microprocess Engineering and Ultrasound Technology

Duration of Studentship 3 Years
Stipend £15,590 per annum

Vacancy Information
Applications are invited for a fully-funded EPSRC PhD studentship in the area of Microprocess Engineering and Ultrasound Technology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering from September 2011.

Studentship Description
Crystallization is widely used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals during the intermediate and final stages of purification and separation. Over 90% of all pharmaceutical products, such as tablets, aerosols, capsules and suspensions, contain drugs in particulate, and usually in crystalline, form. The process defines drug chemical purity and physical properties such as crystal morphology, size, size distribution, habit and degree of perfection. Normally, crystals are manufactured in bulky batch reactors, which are thus difficult to control. Continuous-flow microreactors offer the opportunity to improve the process, making it more efficient. Owing to the reduced scale in characteristic dimensions, microstructured reactors offer many clear advantages, such as better temperature control, accelerated heat and mass transfer and enhanced mixing. Sonication, the application of ultrasound to process fluids, is an intensification technology that, when applied to crystallization, permits both the process and the product quality to be tailored and improved. The additional degrees of freedom that ultrasound introduces renders the process more flexible, offering the possibility of improving the crystal characteristics.

This project is a multidisciplinary collaborative effort between the Departments of Chemical and Mechanical Engineering at UCL, involving GSK and Pfizer as industrial partners. Bringing together crystallization, microreactor technology, ultrasound engineering and multiphase flow modelling, this transformative research aims to develop a novel, and more controllable, manufacturing technology for the production of particles of relevance to the pharmaceutical industries with better quality and greater reproducibility. The project will provide a unique training opportunity in the emerging areas of microreaction and sonocrystallization technologies. This project involves three PhD students and one postdoctoral research assistant, working in close collaboration.

The studentship will focus on the ultrasound engineering components of the project, which will include: studying the effect of acoustic cavitation on nucleation, design and fabrication of the nucleation unit, theoretical modelling of the pressure field in the vicinity of a collapsing bubble and that generated by the ultrasound source, design of an insonated growth unit based on acoustically-induced turbulent mixing, experimentation and analysis.

Person Specification
The candidate should have, or expect to obtain, a first-class MEng, MSc or equivalent degree in Mechanical Engineering or Applied Physics. Please send your application letter, CV and the names and addresses of two referees to Dr. Nader Saffari (n.saffari@ucl.ac.uk) to whom informal enquiries can also be addressed.

Eligibility
The studentship is tenable for 3 years and covers tuition fees at the UK/EU rate plus a stipend of £15,590 per annum for eligible residents. Funding is available for home/EU postgraduate students only. The application deadline is 30 April 2011 and interviews will be held soon after.

For UCL English language requirements see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/admission/graduate-study/application-admission/.