Senior Post Doctoral Research Associate – Characterisation of New Materials (CHS262)

We have a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate position available in the research group of Prof. Len Barbour within the Department of Chemistry, School of Natural Sciences at the University of Lincoln.

This Leverhulme Trust-funded International Professorship project will involve the development and impacts of Dynamic Functional Materials. The programme is structured around the following themes:

• Design and preparation of new crystalline materials;
• Characterisation of these materials;
• Development of new research tools for determining structure-property relationships of crystalline materials;
• Regional, national, and international collaborator programmes.

For more information on our research, please see Prof. Barbour’s current group website at https://academic.sun.ac.za/barbour/Home.html, as well as https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=5fvoWY0AAAAJ&hl=en and https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/natsci/.

The Department of Chemistry at Lincoln is ideally equipped to perform this research, with a range of state-of-the-art equipment for synthetic chemistry, materials characterisation, and advanced functionality studies. The project has been enabled through the development of novel internationally leading facilities based on porosity and crystallography. The team will also work closely with other research areas across the university, including, but not exclusively with, the Bridge, School of Natural Sciences, School of Physical Sciences, and the University of Lincoln’s research themes of Sustainability and Net Zero.

You will have, or will soon obtain, a PhD in chemistry. Each of the positions will require specific expertise that combines several of the following:

• Organic synthesis;
• Preparation of porous molecular crystals, covalent organic frameworks or metal-organic frameworks;
• X-ray crystallography (both single-crystal and powder);
• In situ variable-pressure crystallography;
• Supramolecular chemistry and crystal engineering (including experience with concepts such as polymorphism, co-crystals, solvates, inclusion compounds, phase transitions, packing analysis);
• Gas/vapour sorption analysis (manometric or gravimetric sorption analysis, breakthrough analysis);
• BET measurements;
• Mechanical testing of crystals;
• Preparation of gel composites;
• Thermal analysis (thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry);
• Microscopy (SEM, AFM);
• Crystal engineering of chemical sensors;
• Development of new characterisation tools;

The position is full-time with a fixed-term appointment for 48 months (4 years) and is available to start as soon as possible after 1 March 2026.

We welcome informal enquiries about the project, role, or the university and surrounding area. Please direct these to the Principal Investigator, Prof Len Barbour (lbarbour@lincoln.ac.uk) and Dr Gareth O. Lloyd (glloyd@lincoln.ac.uk).

Closing Date: 17 Dec 2025

Department: Research

Salary: £44,128 per annum
Please note, this post is fixed-term for 48 months and full-time at 1 FTE.

Source ⇲
Job Opportunities at the University of Lincoln