Development of waste-derived adsorbents for CO2 capture from humid gas

We are recruiting new Doctoral Researchers to our EPSRC-funded Doctoral Landscape Award (DLA) PhD studentships starting 1 October 2025.

Applications are invited for the project title: Development of Waste-derived Adsorbents for CO2 Capture from Humid Gas.

Successful applicants will receive an annual stipend (bursary) of approximately £21,237, including inner London weighting, plus payment of their full-time home tuition fees for a period of 42 months (3.5 years).

You should be eligible for home (UK) tuition fees. There is a very limited number (no more than two) of studentships available to overseas applicants, including EU nationals, who meet the academic entry criteria including English Language proficiency.

You will join the internationally recognised researchers in the Department of Chemical Engineering research and PhD programmes | Brunel University London.

The project

Carbon (CO₂)emission is the key contributor to climate change. The UK’s ambitious national plans to meet net-zero targets place the country at the forefront of research and engineering for the development of viable industrial technologies to cut carbon emissions across various industries. Therefore, removal/capture of CO₂from the air/emission points is vital to meet emission targets inter(nationally). Adsorption-based carbon capture is the 2^nd-generation of carbon capture technologies to be significantly developed within this decade. However, there are current challenges with the industrial deployment of the technology, including the high cost of adsorbents, competitive adsorption of water from gas mixtures, and poor mechanical stability of adsorbents. This project aims to address the aforementioned challenges via the valorisation of suitable waste as the precursor to prepare cost-effective yet efficient adsorbents for CO₂ capture from humid gas mixtures.

You will join a fully equipped adsorption laboratory within the Department of Chemical Engineering, with immediate access to state-of-the-art research equipment and infrastructure for adsorption research including TGA, TGA-DSC, BET, FTIR, temperature and vacuum pressure swing adsorption columns (TSA & VPSA), tube furnace, steam generator, sonication probe, mechanical strength testing instrument, ball mill & granulator, and etc. You will also have access to a range of analytical equipment at Brunel’s Experimental Technique Centre (ETC) such as SEM/EDS, TEM, XRD and Raman.

You will be joining a highly diverse research group comprising PhD students and researchers working on adsorption carbon capture and clean energy generation.

Please contact Dr Salman Masoudi Soltani at salman.masoudisoltani@brunel.ac.uk for an informal discussion about the studentships.

Eligibility

Applicants will have or be expected to receive a first or upper-second-class honours degree in a relevant engineering, science or a similar discipline. A degree in chemical/process engineering or chemistry would be advantageous. A postgraduate master’s degree is not required but may be an advantage.

Skills and experience

Applicants will be required to demonstrate the following skills:

Basic understanding of mass & energy balances
Basic understanding of heat & mass transfer
Some general understanding of adsorption processes

You should be highly motivated, able to work independently as well as in a team, collaborate with others and have good communication skills.

How to apply

There are two stages of the application:

1. Applicants must submit the pre-application form via the following link

https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/brunel/epsrc-dla-25-26-pre-application-form-brunel-university-of-londo

by 16.00 on Friday 17 January 2025.

2. If you are shortlisted for the interview, you will be asked to email the following documentation in a single PDF file to cedps-studentships@brunel.ac.uk within 72 hours.

Your up-to-date CV
Your Undergraduate degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) first or upper-second class honours degree essential
Your postgraduate master's degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) if applicable
Your valid English Language qualification of IELTS 6.5 overall (minimum 6.0 in each section) or equivalent, if applicable; this must be valid up to 31 October 2025
Contact details for TWO referees, one of which can be an academic member of staff in the College.

Applicants should therefore ensure that they have all of this information in case they are shortlisted.

Interviews will take place on 13 and 14 February 2025. For shortlisted international/EU applicants’ interviews will be via Microsoft Teams and for UK applicants’ interviews will be in person at the Brunel University of London campus.

Meet the Supervisor(s)

Salman Masoudi Soltani - I am a Reader (Associate/Professor) in Chemical Engineering. In May 2017, I joined Brunel University London as a founding member of the new Chemical Engineering Department, on the team in charge of the design and development of the Programme. I am a Chartered Engineer (CEng/MIChemE) with both industrial and academic research backgrounds in chemical and process engineering. I am also a Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA), UK, and the Director of Research with the Department of Chemical Engineering. My research area is mainly centred on Separation Processes (Experimental & Process Design/Modelling) with a key focus on adsorption processes. I have led a number of major research projects on and around carbon capture and hydrogen production, funded via Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC), and the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ), along with a number of industrial consultancy projects, the details of which have been included under the "Research" tab of this profile. In 2022, my research was featured in the prestigious Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE)' magazine (The Chemical Engineer). I am also serving as the technical advisor with JET Engineering (Anionix). Before joining Brunel University of London, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Department of Chemical Engineering (Clean Fossil & Bioenergy Research Group) at Imperial College London, UK (07/2015 – 05/2017), contributing to several EPSRC as well as EU- and OECD-consultancy projects (Opening New Fuels for UK Generation; Gas-FACTS; CO2QUEST) in the realms of biomass combustion and the modelling and optimisation of CO2 capture & utilisation processes - in Professor Paul Fennell's research group and in collaboration with Professor Niall Mac Dowell and Professor Nilay Shah. In March 2017, I received the prestigious endorsement as the Exceptional Talent in Chemical Engineering by the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK. Prior to this, I worked as a Postdoctoral Knowledge Transfer Partnership Research Associate with Dr Shenyi Wu (Fluids and Thermal Engineering Research Group) at the University of Nottingham, UK (08/2013 – 07/2015), during which, I was fully based at A-Gas International ltd. production site in Bristol (UK), where I worked as a Project/Process Engineer on a major joint engineering research and process design project, involving the research, front end engineering design (FEED), detailed design, and development of a bespoke industrial-scale gas separation process. I was awarded the University of Nottingham Scholarship to study for a PhD in Chemical Engineering (01/03/2011 - 22/02/2014). I conducted my research with the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus where I studied the effects of pyrolysis conditions on the structure of porous carbonaceous adsorbents synthesised from recycled waste, and the effect of subsequent surface modification on heavy metal removal from aqueous media.