Project 3 - Predicting Chemical Treatability and Transformation Across UK Water and Land-Based Treatment Systems (Xinwei Fang, University of York)

About the project

About the Project Catch me if you can: Chemicals are removed to different extents across water treatment systems and may transform along the way—this PhD aims to develop AI-based models to predict their removal, transformation and potential to form harmful by-products. Are you passionate about solving complex environmental challenges? Interested in creating non-toxic environments that benefit society and nature alike? This innovative and exciting PhD project, co-designed with non-academic partners, is part of the NERC-funded ECOSOLUTIONS Doctoral Focal Award, and offers the opportunity to address real world challenges with key opinion-formers to help support sustainable chemical development and create non-toxic urban & rural landscapes. Project details: More than 350,000 chemicals are approved for use globally, yet for most we cannot reliably predict whether current treatment systems will remove them or transform them into potentially harmful by-products. This raises a key research question: How can reliable predictive models be developed from sparse, heterogeneous and uncertain data to estimate chemical removal and transformation across diverse water treatment systems? This PhD will develop AI-based models that combine existing UK water-industry monitoring data with information on chemical properties and environmental fate, including sorption, biodegradation and known transformation pathways. The models will predict the extent of chemical removal across wastewater, drinking-water and land-based treatment systems, and will be extended to identify likely transformation pathways and chemicals with the potential to form problematic by-products. Because the available evidence varies considerably between chemicals and treatment processes, the models will also estimate the level of confidence associated with each prediction. The models will be evaluated not only for predictive accuracy, but also for their generalisability, robustness and the ability to identify predictions that may be unreliable, generating new knowledge and addressing a substantial evidence gap. A Safe and Sustainable by Design component will explore how these predictive models could help chemical and product developers design more treatable substances, reducing the burden on treatment infrastructure. The resulting treatability and transformation predictions will also feed directly into parallel ECOSOLUTIONS work developing catchment-scale, multi-criteria frameworks for selecting chemical pollution mitigation strategies, strengthening the evidence base for solution selection across the UK. The ECOSOLUTIONS DFA Led by the Universities of Sheffield and York and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, ECOSOLUTIONS is a cutting-edge, transdisciplinary initiative. This innovative programme combines science, policy, and societal engagement to transform chemicals policy and management, enabling a safe, sustainable chemicals sector and non-toxic environments. This project is one of 19 projects that are available for the third ECOSOLUTIONS and final cohort who will work together to begin to understand and solve the problems of sustainable chemical design and use, as well tackling the problems that pollution causes in urban environments, rural landscapes and food systems. What You will Gain As an ECOSOLUTIONS PhD student, you will work with world-leading experts across diverse fields such as ecology, data science, digital solutions, chemistry, geography, psychology, environmental engineering, policy, and law. You will learn to tackle the risks posed by chemicals while enabling their societal benefits, adopting a whole-systems and solutions-focused approach. You will receive 3 years and 9 months of funding and take part in a dynamic training and development programme, including: Induction course: Connect with fellow students, supervisors, and the ECOSOLUTIONS team while exploring the programme’s mission. Primer course: Gain foundational knowledge on the environmental risks that chemicals pose, policy landscapes, and sustainable chemical innovation. Transferable skills workshops: Master data management, big data methods, research practices, communication, stakeholder engagement and more. Systems-solutions workshops: Collaborate across disciplines to explore sustainable chemical design and development, address pollution in urban & rural landscapes, and develop actionable solutions. Three-month secondment: Beiersdorf International conferences: Share your findings and network with global experts. The skills you will need To do this project you will need the following essential skills: Data analysis and statistical modelling Knowledge of machine learning methods Programming skills, preferably in Python Eligibility : To be considered for the ECOSOLUTIONS DFA, you will need at least an upper 2nd class honours degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline. As a collaboration of international research-led universities, we welcome students from all walks of life and from across the world. Within our programme, we are dedicated to diversifying our community. As part of our ongoing work to improve Equality, Diversity and Inclusion we strongly encourage applications from UK/Home candidates from identified underrepresented groups: Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, those from a disadvantaged socio-economic background, and disabled people. Start Your Research Career with ECOSOLUTIONS: This PhD is part of the ECOSOLUTIONS Doctoral Focal Award (DFA), a prestigious NERC-funded program dedicated to training the next generation of environmental practitioners. For more details and a full list of other PhD projects under this programme, visit: https://ecosolutions.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/ Application Web Page: For more information on how to apply, please visit the ECOSOLUTIONS website: https://ecosolutions.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/ Dr Xinwei Fang, xinwei.fang@york.ac.uk

Research areas