Course description
Course structure
You'll study a wide range of core and specialist modules. Topics include integrated pollution management, resource management and energy systems, manufacturing process technology, project management and enterprise, and applied environmental biotechnology.
Careers
Graduates can expect to be employed in areas such as waste recycling, process industries, eco-park development and contaminated land regeneration.
Industrial experience
On this Master's degree you'll complete an industrially-related project. This, along with the involvement of industrialists, practitioners and academics in the delivery of this course, ensures that it is relevant to the demands of the process manufacturing industries.
Intermediate awards
Our master's degrees can lead to the award of a postgraduate certificate at Stage 1 (60 credits - 3 modules), a postgraduate diploma at Stage 2 (120 credits - 6 modules) or, on completion of a research project, the MSc.
Block release study
The course is available on a block release basis: you'll study for one week between 9.00am and 6.00pm with follow-up days in the next four weeks and accompanying assignment work.
This course is designed to equip you with the knowledge to address environmental issues in the process industries.
More information
Stage 1
Introduction and Professional Studies
This module is designed to introduce you to the issues related to studying beyond undergraduate level. It applies to students on taught postgraduate courses and those who are embarking on a programme of research. The module encompasses issues such as enrolment, health and safety, using Blackboard, report writing and referencing, ethics, plagiarism, time management and numerical techniques. You will also examine discipline specific areas pertinent to your pathway, which will offer you a particular grounding, skills base or understanding required at the early stage of your study. You will be introduced to personal development planning, by keeping a formal log book.
Integrated Pollution Management
This module provides an understanding of the principles of clean technology and the ability to conduct lifecycle assessments and environmental impact assessments by using case studies. You develop the ideas of integrated pollution management as a means of meeting the relevant environmental legislation. An introduction to ethics, risk perception and stakeholder requirements is provided.
Resource Management and Energy Systems
This module will provide you with an understanding of how different models for sustainability, especially eco-efficiency and ecological models, are derived from international agreements. You will study how these can be used to promote activities such as industrial symbiosis and sustainable product development at local, national and international levels. You will examine the importance of energy technologies and energy policies and their implication in climate change. In particular, you will analyse the role of renewable energy such as wind, wave, solar, biomass and biofuels. The potentially important role the hydrogen economy could play in delivering future energy requirements, including the vital issues of carbon dioxide sequestration and storage, is described.
Stage 2
Applied and Environmental Biotechnology
This module focuses on applying biotechnology to minimise the impact of pollution on natural ecosystems. It addresses pollution control technologies, which are often reliant on the natural ability of organisms to degrade or immobilise pollutants to achieve remediation of contaminated sites. The module is also directed towards novel alternatives to traditional technologies, including microbial insecticides and fertilisers, and the development of transgenic plants. You will discuss molecular methods for assessing biodiversity in detail, as will methods of exploiting environmental biodiversity to develop new industrial processes and new forms of pollution control.
Manufacturing Process Technology
This module provides you with an understanding of machining processes and products to enable you to select the correct cutting inserts for a given work piece material. You will also presented with the methods available for tool selection with the standards currently available. The module goes on to identify the types of wear mechanisms which will lead to tool failure.
Project Management and Enterprise
This module is designed to equip you with the necessary skills to successfully project manage new product developments focusing on project management skills and processes, quality assurance issues, new product development processes and statistical analysis techniques. It provides you with an opportunity to develop a project plan for a programme of research based on scientific literature, with particular reference to key concepts such as innovation, enterprise and originality. This fundamental project management basis is interlinked with developing an understanding of entrepreneurial best practices to enable you to transfer your ideas into the commercial arena. This element of the module will focus on intellectual property rights, legal, regulatory and ethical issues, business start up processes and will include an element of foresight thinking.
Stage 3
Research Project
This is the culmination of the programme of studies. You will undertake a challenging problem related substantially to your discipline. The project is linked where possible to an industrial or external partner organisation, which may even host your work and substantially direct the activity. Where this is not possible, a real or simulated real problem may be chosen as subject for the work. It is, however, expected that even where the problem is simulated or hypothetical, it will be treated as if real. The project outcomes project should be at a publishable standard.
