|
Andrew Fish (above) – Currently studying towards Applied Chemistry BSc (Hons) at the University of Teesside. Based in Billingham, Cleveland, UK.
'I started working at Johnson Matthey in 2005 on a two year ‘young scientist’ programme, after obtaining my A-levels in chemistry, maths and biology. The way the scheme operated allowed me to spend four six month placements in different workgroups within research and technology on the Billingham site. At the same time, I worked towards NVQ levels 2 and 3 in Laboratory & Associated Activities and started a part time undergraduate course at the University of Teesside on day release, with the aim of achieving a BSc in Applied Chemistry. This was all sponsored by the company as part of the training programme.
In my first two years at Johnson Matthey I worked on several very varied projects, gaining experience across the research and development teams. My projects included developing absorbent materials for the removal of impurities from refinery feedstocks, designing an integrated data management system for research test rigs, assessing the effect of mixing and dispersants on the rheological properties of catalyst precursors and examining the effect of promoter content on the performance of new catalysts. Over the two years I gained both a wide range of practical skills and an invaluable appreciation of the wide range of markets and applications for which Johnson Matthey’s products are manufactured.
In 2007 I was employed permanently to work within the purification research department and am currently working on a number of projects relating to the development of novel guard materials for the gas processing and refinery markets.
I have gained an enormous amount of satisfaction from being involved with designing and testing a new product in the lab and following its subsequent scale up to large scale production at our manufacturing site and testing on customer plants.'
|
