EAT offers menu of a PhD, training and work experience

Postgraduate Training Partnership company EA Technology (EATL), based between Chester and Liverpool, used to be the state-funded research body for the electricity supply industry, writes Matthew Peach. After privatisation, EATL became an independent research company.

Executive director David Hodgett says EATL joined the PTP scheme to offer graduates the opportunity to gain a PhD and industrial experience, while solving industrial problems.

`Our specialities are in processes, rather than products. Our strategy is to acquire technology by by working co-operatively with universities, to gain intellectual property.'

Through the PTP, students receive a salary equivalent to about £18 000. EATL runs ten new projects each year, primarily with electricity supply in mind, but which are often suitable for other industries.

The company's academic partner is UMIST, which offers a useful range of modular MSc courses to top up a new arrivals' knowledge of power engineering to give them a better grounding.

Since 1992, EATL has seen two intakes gradute and the third group is currently writing up. Hodgett reports that, so far, 60 per cent of them have gained jobs in industry and 30 per cent are now working for the company.

A good example is Gillian Murray, who is developing a magnetic fluidised bed reactor. A related LINK project should start in October, working with Glaxo and bed supplier Alpha Biotec.

The reactor incorporates magnetic carrier technology to produce glucose syrups seven times faster than conventional systems. It could easily be adapted to make other speciality chemicals. The magnetic feature enables better control of catalysts.

`I had my reactor built on site in 3-4 months; the support and training programme is great. It was an added challenge that I would be tackling real problems,' she says.

In another project, researcher Xiaoming Duan discovered, by accident, an unusual non-equilibrium plasma. The special characteristic of the microwave-induced plasma is that it enables the development of temperatures up to 2000 degreesC at atmospheric pressure. Conventional plasmas need high vacuum.

PTP researcher Hugh Potts says: `The plasma should be useful for treating and coating ceramics, polymers and glasses. It can also be used to destroy VOCs and to produce photovoltaic materials more economically.'

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