PhD Studentship - Crosslinking Heterogeneity and its Relationship to Microplastics Release

Application deadline: 31/07/2025

How to apply: uom.link/pgr-apply-2425

How many projects: 1

This 3.5 year PhD project is fully funded by the Strategic Doctoral Landscape Award (sDLA) Scholarships and is available to home students only. Tuition fees will be paid and the successful candidate will receive an annual tax free stipend set at the UKVI rate (£19,237 for 2024/25). We expect this to increase each year.

Crosslinking heterogeneity at the coating/air surface may play an important role in microplastics release. Cross-sectional heterogeneities have been observed at the solid/coating interfaces as a result of microphase segregation. Low crosslinking regions can be weakly attached to the rest of the paint making them prone to degrade.

This project will use state of the art molecular modelling techniques to study crosslinking of epoxy amine coatings, focusing on the polymer/air interface to understand the structure of the coating, segregation at the interface, heterogeneities in the degree of crosslinking and the presence of weakly bound oligomers. One of the aims is to identify weakly attached fragments in the coating that can be easily detached and leached out to the environment as microplastics, why are they formed and how to avoid them. The use of additives to limit the presence of such regions will also be explored. The work will be in close collaboration with experimentalists to validate the simulation results.

This work builds on our previous research on crosslinking at the substrate/polymer interface:

Suzanne Morsch, Yanwen Liu, Kieran Harris, Flor R. Siperstein, Claudio Di Lullo, Peter Visser, and Stuart Lyon
Probing the Nanostructure and Reactivity of Epoxy–Amine Interphases,
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2024 16 (50), 70097-70107
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.4c17387

Suzanne Morsch, Charlie R. Wand, Simon Gibbon, Mark Irwin, Flor Siperstein, Stuart Lyon,
The effect of cross-linker structure on interfacial interactions, polymer dynamics and network composition in an epoxy-amine resin,
Applied Surface Science 2023 609, 155380
doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2022.155380

This scholarship is open to UK applicants only.

Applicants should have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2.1 honours degree or a master’s (or international equivalent) in a chemical engineering, physical chemistry or related discipline.

• Experience programming is essential.
• Knowledge of molecular modelling is highly desirable.
• Experience with molecular dynamics software such as LAMMS is desirable.
• Experience with molecular simulation software is beneficial.

To apply please contact Dr Siperstein - flor.siperstein@manchester.ac.uk or Dr Suzanne Morsch - suzanne.morsch@manchester.ac.uk. Please include details of your current level of study, academic background and any relevant experience and include a paragraph about your motivation to study this PhD project. Please Indicate clearly your experience with programming and your level of knowledge on molecular simulations.

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