Overview

Apply your advanced engineering skills to industry-focused research projects and identify real-world solutions to existing and emerging chemical engineering problems.

You can select from existing applied research projects that are well supported by industry. These projects will deliver fundamental research leading to innovative new products, processes and knowledge.

Research opportunities are in the fields of rheology, advanced and functional materials, water and wastewater, energy, complex liquid flow, microfluidics, and surface science.

You will be expertly supervised while you work on a project in one of the following areas:

• anaerobic digester hydrodynamics
• biochemical engineering
• biodegradable polymer nanocomposites
• biomass utilisation and conversion
• chaos and mixing
• colloids science
• corrosion and materials degradation
• drinking water treatment
• flow process and mixer analysis of complex fluids and multiphase mixtures
• life cycle analysis of processes
• microfluidics
• nanodroplets, nanobubbles and nanocatalysts
• polymer processing
• rheology of polymers and sludge
• surface science
• water quality and wastewater treatment.

This PhD may be undertaken in a project, thesis with publication or thesis mode. Prospective candidates should discuss these modes of submission with their potential supervisor.

Research centres and collaborations

Our primary research activities are conducted within these related research centres:

• Centre for Innovative Structures and Materials (CISM)
• Water: Effective Technologies and Tools (WETT) Research Centre

Research facilities

The School of Engineering has excellent laboratory facilities for rheology, materials characterisation, polymer processing, and water quality and treatment. We also have facilities for the conduct of lab and pilot scale investigations which are complemented by a comprehensive range of general and specialist analytical equipment. You will also have the opportunity to use RMIT’s state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar MicroNano Research Facility.

Chemical engineering at RMIT has received recognition for world class research that is well supported by competitive grants, Australian Research Council grants, and industry funding.