PhD studentship in Environmental Electrochemistry for international students
Applications are invited for a research studentship in the field of Environmental Electrochemistry, leading to the award of a PhD degree. The post is supported by a Chinese Government Scholarship for Chinese University Program (CUP) provided by China Scholarship Council (CSC) and the Ministry of Education (MOE), P. R. China. Candidates should fulfil the eligibility criteria for the award.
The Research Project
The FunMat Laboratory (Group website: http://funmat.ese.hust.edu.cn) was founded by Prof. Jingping Hu from the University of Oxford in 2014. This Lab is devoted to understand the degradation mechanisms in various advanced oxidation processes (AOP), to design novel electrochemical sensors for environmental monitoring and to explore resource recovery of solid waste as environmental functional materials.
The on-going projects include: Understanding various advanced oxidation processes for industrial waste water treatment, including electrochemical Oxidation, nano zero-valent iron reduction and oxidation, photocatalytic Oxidation and microbial fuel cell system; exploring electrochemical sensing for environmental monitoring using electrochemical system, Microfluidic environmental sensors and microbial electrochemical system; investigating resource recovery of solid waste as as environmental functional materials, for use as adsorbent for pollution control and electrodes for supercapacitors and lithium sulphur batteries.
1) Industrial Wastewater Pollution Control: The electrocatalytic advanced oxidation processes, Nanoscale Zero-valent Iron (nZVI), Photocatalytic Oxidation technology
2) Electrochemical Environmental Sensing: Electrochemical sensing, Bioelectrochemical system (BES) based sensing technique, Microfluidic environmental sensors
3) Recovery and Recycling of Solid Waste, Environment Function Material: High specific energy Lithium-Sulfur battery
The PhD Supervisors
Our research team consists of three supervisors, Prof. Jingping Hu, Associate Prof. Huijie Hou and Associate Prof. Bingchuan Liu, with around 30 research students and postdocoral researchers.
Prof. Dr Jingping Hu is a professor of environmental engineering at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and is chairing FunMat Laboratory. His research largely focuses on advanced oxidation process (AOP) for wastewater treatment, electrochemical sensing for environmental monitoring, resource recovery of solid waste as environmental functional materials. He has been published more than 127 papers in several leading international journals, including Adv. Mat., Angew Chem, Anal. Chem., with 41 papers of first author/corresponding author, total citations >1591, and H index 23 (https://publons.com/researcher/3169566/jingping-hu/publications/).He was awarded the prestigious Newton Abraham studentship at Lincoln College and received his D.Phil from the University of Oxford (2004-2008). After graduation he was awarded as Sir William Ramsay Research Fellowship (https://www.soci.org/awards/past-recipients/ramsay-memorial-fellowship) at the University of Oxford. In late 2013, Dr Hu was awarded a prestigious Chinese recruitment programme, and joined the Huazhong University of Science and Technologyin Wuhan China in January 2014.
Associate Prof. Huijie Hou is an associate professor in Dept. Environmental Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and she is also the recipient of “Huazhong” Scholor. Her research interests cover mainly microbial electrochemical systems for wastewater treatment, microsensors for environmental applications and advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) for wastewater treatment. She has published more than 40 papers in leading journals including Advanced Materials, Trends in Biotechnology, Lab Chip, etc.
Associate Prof. Bingchuan Liu is an associate professor of environmental engineering at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and is a member of FunMat Laboratory. His research largely focuses on 1. Bioelectrochemical system based environmental sensing technology; 2. Sustainable bioenergy production from waste treatment; 3. Remote Bio-power source development in harsh environment. During his Ph.D study period, He has published 7 research papers as first/corresponding author and 12 research papers in total. Most of his research papers were published in top-ranked journals including Biosensor and Bioelectronics, Journal of Power Sources, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
Candidate Eligibility
Candidates should be an enthusiastic and self-motivated person who meets the academic requirements for enrolment for the PhD degree at Huazhong University of Science and Technolgy. You will have a 1st class honours degree in Environmental Engineering, Chemistry, Materials Science or a related subject, and an enquiring and rigorous approach to research together with a strong intellect and disciplined work habits. An interest in Environmental Electrochemistry is essential. Good team-working, observational and communication skills are essential.
For further details of the post, please contact Prof Jingping Hu, hujp -AT- hust.edu.cn. Interested applicants should send up-to-date curriculum vitae, transcript of results and two academic references to Prof J. Hu. Suitable candidates will be required to complete related electronic application forms at the International Student Office (http://iso.hust.edu.cn/) in order for their scholarship application (http://iso.hust.edu.cn/Scholarships/Chinese_University_Program_CUP_.htm) and qualifications to be addressed by the University international student office.
Fig 1. Photo of FunMat group members, taken in May 2016.
