PhD Scholarships in Materials Science at UNSW

PhD Opportunities in Materials Science at UNSW

Multiple PhD scholarships are available starting from Spring 2023 in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. The PhD scholarships (basic 30k AUD annual stipend and tuition fee funded by UNSW, maximum up to 50k AUD if applying RTP or UIPA; details referring to https://research.unsw.edu.au/international-research-scholarships) will be funded by Dr Wei Wang’s ARC DECRA titled Multifunctional Biomass Coatings for Electrostatic Induced Fire Hazards commenced in 2023, the PhD candidates will be jointly supervised by Prof Guan Heng Yeoh and Dr Wei Wang. Successful applications will join a thriving research group working on flame retardants, fire modeling and safety. Applicants may also have an opportunity to spend a period of their research at the laboratories of our collaborating organizations from Australia, Hong Kong, China, UK, and USA.

Topics of Research:

Designing bio-inspired high-performance polymer/polymer composite separator for lithium metal batteries.

- Design of Cole shell Structure Thermal Safe Phase Charge Material and Study on the Mechanism of the Safety Protection for Lithium-Ion Battery.

- Investigation on the preparation of novel eco-friendly inorganic decorated polymer separator with advanced functions for safer Li-ion (metal) batteries.

- The electrochemical performance and safety behavior of lithium metal batteries under high-temperature environments have been explored.

- Preparing specific organic electrolytes hybrid capable of excellent electrochemical properties and higher safety for state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries.

Minimal requirements:

• Majored in Materials Science, Chemical Science, Mechanical Engineering, and other related fields.

• Interested in research areas: Lithium batteries, polymer composites, separators and electrolytes, inorganic materials, organic synthesis, conductive polymers/inorganics, multifunctional bio-inspired coatings.

• Course marks: required.

• IELTS: required, overall 6.5, subscore 6.0.

Other expectations:

• Has hands-on experience and skills about: molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model; battery safety materials; C4D; Maya; COMSOL Multiphysics;

• Strong oral and written communication skills.

If you are interested in the position, please email Dr Wei Wang, [email protected], with your CV and English scores. Potential candidates will be invited for online interviews. More information about the application can be found at https://research.unsw.edu.au/key-dates.