Profile
Peter Bortlik
-
About Me:
I live in the North East of England working as a Research Scientist. I love watching and playing sports including Tennis and Football. I also love pizza and crisps and enjoy going to see live gigs and concerts.
-
Read more
I’m originally from Leeds and after spending a few years living in different parts of the UK I am now based in the North East. In my free time I spend a lot of time watching and playing sports. I like going to football matches and when I’m not doing sports or science, I’ll be listening to the newest songs I can find or going to the live gigs of my favourite bands. I also like the great outdoors and like to go on long walks.
-
My Work:
I work as a research scientist at Johnson Matthey. I make and test materials that reacts with contaminants and poisonous compounds and removes them from different chemical manufacturing processes. The affects of these reactions eventually benefits us all meaning that we can use every day essentials. This can be everything from your ingredients in your deodorant to the fuel that goes into your car.
-
Read more
I prepare materials in the laboratory using what is essentially an advanced cake mixer to make a type of bead. I use different materials to create different ‘recipes’ and form them into these beads. I then test to see how well they work at removing contaminants using a special kind of reactor. When I find the best performing recipe, I then speak to our manufacturing site and we then prepare tonnes of the material (on much bigger versions of my lab mixer!) which we will test before it is used in a real chemical process.
-
My Typical Day:
I wake up and have breakfast – energy is needed to think about the experiments of the day! I arrive at work and plan my day and start beginning my experiments. I have meetings to talk through the work I am doing and work through finding solutions with my team. Then I’ll complete my experiments and look at the results and setup some more experiments to run over night, ready for the next day.
-
Read more
In my role as a research scientist I spend a lot of the time in the laboratory doing experimental work. I also spend some of my time meeting with other scientists and working together to find new things to try and different ways we can do the experiments. I really enjoy the benefits of talking to a lot of scientists and it’s really interesting to learn about their work and the different technologies they are developing. I don’t have to be the expert in everything but I know I can learn lots from asking questions from the people who are the experts in their specific topics.
-
Education:
I went to school in West Yorkshire and after completing my GCSEs I continued on in sixth form to complete my A levels. I then moved to study Chemistry at the University of Birmingham. I was really keen to see what working in an industrial laboratory would be like so I completed a 4 year degree which included a placement year in the third year. After completing the 4 year degree, I had gained valuable experience of working in a laboratory and knowledge of chemistry and so sort after opportunities in the chemical industry.
-
Qualifications:
GCSEs: Including Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Maths
A Levels: Chemistry, Physics, Maths
MSci Chemistry with Industrial Experience – University of Birmingham
-
Work History:
Industrial placement researcher – For my placement year as part of my degree I worked at GSK. I was testing a new method to remove contaminants from a type of drug molecule
Technical Assistant – Testing and preparing of oils for the manufacturing industry
Radiochemical Analyst – I analysed many types of samples to test for radioactive isotopes like Uranium and Plutonium. The samples were mostly from the environement, but included literally anything from water, soil, sand, seaweed, to even milk and cream!
Electrochemical Scientist – I previously worked at Johnson Matthey in a role where I was responsoble for building and testing small prototype batteries. These prototypes were used to determine how long the material in the battery would last in, for instance, a phone or an electric car
-
Current Job:
Senior Researcher – Testing of materials that absorb and remove contaminants
-
Employer:
Johnson Matthey
-
My Interview
-
What did you want to be after you left school?
Scientist – I’ve always liked experimenting!
Were you ever in trouble at school?
No, never!
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Astronaut
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Linkin Park
What's your favourite food?
Pizza
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
To be able to read minds, to be able to time travel, to teleport
Tell us a joke.
A neutron walks into a bar and orders a drink, the bar man says for you there will be no charge!
-
Comments