Salary
UH7 £38,784pa to £46,049pa by annual increments
Contractual hours
37
Basis
Full Time
Job category/type
Academic/Research
Job reference
REQ000298
Post Title: Research Fellow in carbon-based agents for Sustainable fuels
SBU/Department: School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science
FTE: 1.0 fte (working 37 hours per week)
Duration of Contract: Fixed term 18 Months
Annual Leave: 35 days plus standard public holidays and an additional 4 days including the closure of our office between Christmas and New Year
Location: College Lane Campus, Hatfield
This is an exciting opportunity for a Research Fellow to develop a joint research portfolio, working on sustainable fuels collaboratively with a leading international company in the field of aerospace. You will be working with fuel and energy engineering groups and communities, within their fuel and additive industry. This project will contribute to the UK government's NetZero goals for 2030/2035 and 2050 in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement – aiming for Net-Zero CO2 emissions.
Main duties and responsibilities
The project will involve additive agents for fuels regarding their collection and characterisation, aiming at enhancing use performance for the fuel system. The project will focus on characterisation and agent dispersion mechanisms and optimisation between the additives and fuel-fluidic systems involving mixtures of two to three phases and their dispersion within the stability cycles of hydrophobic suspensions.
The successful candidate will need to undertake aerospace fuel/lubricants composition and functions and their essential functional composition and mechanisms of their working processes, their chemo and thermophysical properties, as well as the potential maximizing energizing routes. The work will essentially establish a novel research field for the SAFs by setting up new milestones for the SAFs early-stage application and extend the development into wider field of industrial applications collaboratively with practical industries.
Skills and experience required
The post holder will have knowledge and experience in sustainable development of fuels focusing on additive agents for fuels. The additives agents may include fine chemicals, carbon-based fuels, sustainable and suspensible or dispensible particles down to nano or clusters or quantum molecular scales. Your work will be in preparation and performance predication (numerically if possible) for exploring enhancement of agents or additives for improving the overall performance of sustainable aviation fuels.
Experience in preparation, analysis and characterisation of active additives/agents within fluidic hydrophobic atomic or quantum level or nanoclusters will be beneficial. Therefore, the desired skills include fuel chemical additive and engineering, small molecular energizing agents, such as carbon/graphene quantum dots, or high-density organic carbon graphite.
It is essential that you have Good IT skills, including the use of MS Office, and the ability to work to tight deadlines dealing with conflicting priorities. You must also be flexible and adaptable to team and workload requirements, and demonstrate initiative and the ability to learn new skills.
Qualifications required
The successful candiate will be educated with an undergraduate honours degree (or equivalent level 6 qualification) or Masters qualification or equivalent level qualification in a relevant discipline. It is also essential to hold a PhD (or equivalent level qualification) with equivalent experience in fuels, small molecules, in chemical engineering or molecular science or physics.
Please view the job description and person specification for a full list of the duties and essential criteria. Please attach a personal statement showing clearly how your skills and experience match the Person Specification.
Internal applicants– please ensure you apply via your employee self-service portal.
An appointment to this role may require an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) certificate.
This post cannot be visa sponsored unless the applicant has a PhD / Doctorate.
Contact Details/Informal Enquiries: Dr G Ren, Reader in Materials, Tel ; email.
Closing Date: 24 September 2025
Interview Date: TBC
Reference Number: REQ000298
Date advert placed: 10 September 2025
Our vision is to transform lives: UH is committed to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and building a diverse community. We welcome applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of their protected characteristics and recognise there are different ways applicants may achieve the criteria in this document. We offer a range of employee benefits including generous annual leave, flexible location opportunities within the UK, discounted Sports Village memberships and free Active Staff sessions, personal and professional development and family-friendly policies. #GoHerts