Leeds Team

The UL team consists of researchers with specialisation in Earth and Environmental Sciences, Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences. The Coordinator will be the School of Earth and Environment (SEE), currently consisting of 108 academic, 21 technical, 62 postdoctoral, 132 PhD, 180 MSc students, 29 support staff and nearly 700 undergraduates. One third of current PhD Students are from Europe and Overseas. Within SEE, 5 Postdoctoral Fellows, 13 PhD Students and 3 Technical Staff are involved in research on mineralogical and geochemical subjects related to this proposal.

The SEE infrastructure and laboratories have been upgraded in 2010 with a £23Mio investment. This includes the Cohen Laboratory Suite which is ~ 1100 m2 (2 superscript) of newly designed and equipped laboratories dedicated solely to biogeochemical and mineralogical research projects.

Role:

Network Coordinator; responsible for all EU related reporting, communications and management at the ITN level; responsible for training and research related to in situ and real-time synthesis and characterisation of scale minerals; coordination of the network wide research-specific and complimentary training events.

Key Competences and Facilities:

The new labs are equipped with the latest facilities for time-resolved reactions, from days or weeks to less than one second, and for characterising reaction products at the atomic scale. This includes ambient and high temperature reactors, rapid mixing stopped-flow fluid cells, fast UV-VIS cells for kinetics, electrochemical quartz microbalance systems, etc. Analytical facilities include UV-VIS, XRD, infrared and Raman spectrometers, a full suite of imaging facilities (Leeds Electron Microscopy and Spectroscopy Center (LEMAS): E-SEM, FEG-SEM, FEG-TEM with EELS/SAED and cryo-imaging). In addition, the team will organise and coordinate access to the Diamond Ltd. and ESRF Synchrotron facilities for experiments.

Key Persons:

Liane BenningProject Coordinator and UL Team Leader

Professor Liane G. Benning is an experimental geochemist specialised in in situ and real-time reactions using synchrotron techniques;

 

 

 

 

Dr. Caroline Peacock

Lecturer in Biogeochemistry specialised in mineral-water reactions and spectroscopy.

Prof. Anne Neville, FRES

Specialised in corrosion and surface engineering.

Prof. Rik Brydson

Director of LEMAS, expert in high-resolution imaging.

Ms. Emma Holden

Senior Research Officer, management of EU training networks.

Previous Training Programs and Research:

Partner in large UK, EU and international research and training programs. Partner FP6 RTN BIOTRACS, FP6 RTN MIN-GRO, FP6 RTN EST MIR. Prof. Anne Neville has recently been awarded an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant. The Team Leader has trained 10 Postdoctoral Fellows and 20 PhD Students in the last 5 years.