Apply for a Masters scholarship, 28K tax free for up to 18 months.
This is an exciting project with potentially high conservation impact with a commercial partner and supported by UC Biosecurity Innovations (UCBI).
Design a chemical to humanely kill introduced vertebrates.
Photo by Airwolfhound
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You will have
- a chemistry or chemistry engineering background
- a first or second-class honours
- an interest in conservation and pest control
- and ideally an understanding of reaction kinetics of NMR however training will be provided.
Your Masters in Chemical Process Engineering or Masters in Science will develop a novel vertebrate toxic agent (VTA). The VTA is a mixture of two compounds and there is a possible production route for the active species. You will develop a process design on the reaction kinetics or mechanism. The measurements will be used to inform a New Zealand company, your funders, and to determine whether or not the production is commercially viable.
Key objectives are
- To identify whether the reaction an equilibrium reaction.
- To determine the reaction rate constants, and how these vary with temperature.
- Recommend a probable reactor type for small scale production of the substance.
We will address these objectives using a novel benchtop NMR spectroscopy setup to perform online monitoring of the reaction kinetics. We will use NMR to perform structural identification of the products of the reaction, and to perform quantitative analysis of the changing composition throughout the reaction. We will also design and build a system to enable real-time sampling of the reaction mixture.
Find out more and get in touch!