PhD Studentship: Robotic Platforms for AI Empowered Nanomaterial Synthesis

PhD Studentship: Robotic Platforms for AI Empowered Nanomaterial Synthesis Application deadline: Monday, February 19, 2024 VACANCY INFORMATION The Department of Chemical Engineering at UCL (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/chemical-engineering/) is one of the top research and teaching departments in the UK, with world-class standing. The advertised research will be conducted in UCL’s brand new and cutting-edge Manufacturing Futures Laboratory (MFL) at the beautiful Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The post is fully funded for 3.5 years starting September 2024. STUDENTSHIP DESCRIPTION Robotics and automation are rapidly changing research and development in all areas of science and engineering. Empowered by Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning autonomous robotic systems facilitate new ways for material discovery, providing a much needed strategy to develop materials that solve the grand challenges of society. This project focusses specifically on nanomaterials for biomedicine (especially magnetically induced cancer treatment and MRI contrast agents) and energy materials (e.g. solar cells and battery materials). Synthesising nanomaterial with properties (e.g. size, composition, surface chemistry) well-tuned for the targeted application is incredibly complex as a high number of synthesis variables affects the final product. The experimental demands scale exponentially with the number of variables like reactants, reaction conditions and concentration and temperature profiles. This project aims to benefit from the opportunities robotic systems (and especially liquid handling robots) provide to automate Nanomaterial Synthesis. Reactors commonly used to synthesise nanomaterials in the lab are rather simple but their integration into state of the art liquid handling robots has not been fully utilised. One reason for this is the size constraints all commercially available liquid handling robots impose, as they were developed and standardised to handle small liquid volumes. In addition, material characterization still requires manual sample transfer and sample preparation. Within this PhD the student will design small and compact chemical reactors that can be integrated within available robotics platforms, and develop workflows to facilitate the execution of synthetic procedures in these reactors autonomously, i.e., without experimental effort for the human operator. Furthermore, specialised analytic equipment analysing nanomaterials in real-time will be integrated within these Robotic Platforms and made part of the workflow to “close the loop”. This allows for fully autonomous nanomaterial development by coupling this robotic platform for Nanomaterial Synthesis and analysis with Artificial Intelligent algorithms. PERSON SPECIFICATION The successful candidate will have completed or be close to completing a first-class degree at the MEng or MSc level in Chemical Engineering, Biochemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, Material Science or any related science or engineering discipline. ELIGIBILITY Funds are only available to cover UK-equivalent fees. Overseas applicants may apply but if successful would have to find funding to cover the difference between the UK and overseas fees rates. Applications should be submitted through: https://evision.ucl.ac.uk/urd/sits.urd/run/siw_ipp_lgn.login?process=siw_ipp_app&code1=RRDCENSING01&code2=0037 Please nominate Dr. Maximilian Besenhard as supervisor and include a statement of interest. For informal enquiries please contact Dr. Maximilian Besenhard at m.besenhard@ucl.ac.uk. For further information on the MPhil/PhD course as well as the recruitment and selection process, please click on the link below: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/chemical-engineering/study/mphilphd