Research Associate in X-ray Imaging of Cementitious Materials – X-SeeO2

Job reference: SAE-029230
Salary: £37,174 to £45,413 per annum dependent on relevant experience
Faculty/Organisational Unit: Science and Engineering
Location: Oxford Road
Employment type: Fixed Term
Division/Team: Department of Materials
Hours Per Week: Full Time (1 FTE)
Closing date (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/07/2025
Contract Duration: 42 months
School/Directorate: School of Natural Sciences

Partnering with the University of Bath, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), France, and led by Miguel Ángel García, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Malaga (UMA), we have formed a consortium, X-SeeO2, that has been selected by the EIC under the Pathfinder “Cement as Carbon Sinks" Challenge call to receive €4 million in funding. The Challenge seeks to support breakthrough innovations and (alternative) pathways for decarbonized and carbon-negative cement and concrete while maintaining its structural integrity and durability. This is important because cement and concrete technologies contribute around 8% of our CO2 emissions (about 600 kg per capita), which are “embodied” in our buildings and infrastructures.

Our 'X-SeeO2' project has been selected as a key 'enabling technology'. This means that the micro-computed tomography (microCT) analysis methods that will be pioneered within the National X-ray Computed Tomography facility (NXCT) located in the Royce Institute at Manchester and at the ESRF will be used to accelerate and improve the products and technologies arising out of the other innovation projects that have been selected within this same pathfinder challenge in this latest EIC Horizon Europe call. These methods will reveal the 3D structure and evolution of microstructure of concrete non-destructively and make these methods available to other researchers across the “Cement as Carbon Sinks" Challenge.

The successful candidate will help to develop protocols for imaging, characterizing and quantifying the various cement phases as well as the porosity (volume fraction, pore size, connectivity etc) using lab. And synchrotron X-ray CT as well as developing new characterization modalities. In addition the researcher will liaise with, and support, the time resolved characterisation of low carbon cements of other teams within the Pathfinder challenge. They will be based in Manchester but also make trips to the ESRF in Grenoble as well as to our collaborators in Malaga and Bath. Others within the group will develop in situ rigs for studying the kinetics of the hydration and carbonation reactions (ex-situ and in-situ) by laboratory and synchrotron powder diffraction (for crystalline component time-evolution) and laboratory and synchrotron computer tomography (for microstructure time-evolution, including carbonate-shrinkage). The diffraction studies will be carried out by other X-SeeO2 staff.

Overall Purpose of the Job

The successful candidate will carry out X-ray imaging/tomographic research on cementitious materials, with the focus being the carbonation processes. The team at the ESRF will develop an in-situ carbonation cell under moderate CO2 pressures. The researcher will undertake time resolved and ex-situ studies of cementitious materials within the Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility (which leads the National Facility for Lab. X-ray CT (nxct.ac.uk)) in Manchester, which is one of the most extensive suites of CT scanners in Europe. They will also undertake and support some experiments at the ESRF.

The post holder will be located at the University of Manchester but will be expected to carry out some experiments at the ESRF and to travel to the collaborators to attend meetings.

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: Prof. Philip Withers

Email: p.j.withers@manchester.ac.uk

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