Congratulations to CQUniversity honours researcher Matt Thompson who has a $5000 scholarship* to ensure access to national physics laboratories, furthering his understanding of the corrosion of mild steel in heat exchanger tubes in the digestion phase of alumina production.

The Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) stipend enables him to access equipment at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and other facilities supported by AINSE.

Honours researcher Matt Thompson looks forward to accessing national physics labs to further his corrosion observations

"We are keen to understand how and why this corrosion occurs. We are checking if there's a change in the mechanism involved at different temperatures," Matt says.

He says he has done some preliminary experimental work using equipment at the Process Engineering & Lights Metals (PELM) facility at Gladstone Campus and is now looking forwards to using advanced X-Ray difraction and transmission electron microscope equipment for further observations.

Matt is supervised by Dr Geoffrey Pang and Associate Professor David Druskovich, who are based at CQUniversity Rockhampton, as well as Professor Richard Clegg from the PELM Centre in Gladstone.

* One of only 10 honours scholarships awarded by AINSE for 2011 based on academic excellence.