Scholarship Description: Provision of clean drinking water is a primary concern to those living in both developing and developed nations. The range of treatments is reviewed in a recent book chapter by our group. In addition to reagents of an organic nature, nitrates are also of increasing concern in areas of extensive use of soluble nitrate fertilizers. Catalytic hydrogenation over noble/base metals combinations, usually based on Pd show some promise in terms of rates of nitrate removal but are usually limited in terms of the selectivity required to avoid undesired nitrite and ammonium formation. Several studies concerning the potential photocatalytic reduction of nitrates in solution have been reported, however, the selectivities, are far from the desired values. There is a limited amount of literature dealing with photocatalytic nitrate removal and the potential exploitable nature of this methodology makes it appear ideal for further, more extensive study. A key objective would be to develop active, selective and robust, metal modified semiconductor based photocatalysts which would could be activated in the visible range and consume hole scavengers based on organic pollutants that would be present at appropriate levels in ground waters also contaminated by nitrate. This opens up an interesting opportunity which might exploit properties of Au in terms of visible light activation with a robust noble metal. Given that Pd is the most effective nitrite reducing catalyst in the aqueous phase hydrogenation reaction, this would be an appropriate starting point.
Application Procedure
You should apply for MSc with a view to transfer to PhD in Chemistry, to ensure that your application is passed to the correct College for processing. Please note, you should apply at least 4 days before the deadline to allow us to contact you for further information, if required. All applications received up to, and including the closing date, will be processed.
Scholarship Application Deadline: 24 November 2010
Further Scholarship Information and Deadline:
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar