PhD candidate Life Cycle Assessment for a safe and sustainable chemical industry

18 Jan 2024
Job Information

Organisation/Company

Maastricht University (UM)

Research Field

Technology

Researcher Profile

First Stage Researcher (R1)

Country

Netherlands

Application Deadline

31 Jan 2024 - 22:59 (UTC)

Type of Contract

Temporary

Job Status

Not Applicable

Hours Per Week

38.0

Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by an EU programme

Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

No

Offer Description

Project information

The transition to a sustainable society poses major challenges for the Dutch chemical industry. Currently, safety considerations and economies of scale dictate a landscape of large plants clustered at industrial sites. Products include fertilizers, plastics and vaccine carrier proteins and are mostly of fossil origin. A roadmap to guide the industry through the sustainability transition while maintaining economic viability and at least existing safety levels does not yet exist due to the lack of suitable technology. This work explores a possible solution for the common building block acrylonitrile.

Presently, acrylonitrile production is large scale and involves storage and transportation of large quantities of toxic and/or flammable substances. It is an intermediate for a range of materials. The alternative plasma approach offers, from a process safety viewpoint, an inherent safer alternative by reducing process quantities and perhaps even allows local production at the site of the end users. Central question of the project is how safe-by-design opportunities for sustainable production can objectively be evaluated in terms of the complex optimization of safety,sustainability, cost-effectiveness, robustness, flexibility, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder interaction and acceptance.

The Integral Safe and Sustainable-by-Design Plasma Process for Acrylonitrile Production (ISPA) project is supported by the NWA program "Towards a practical Safe-by-Design approach for chemical products and processes" of the Dutch Research Council NWO. The project is coordinated by Prof. Gerard van Rooij, head of the Circular Chemical Engineering Department of Maastricht University. The Consortium is a multidisciplinary team with partners from Maastricht University (Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences), Radboud University, TNO, ANQORE, Sitech, and Safety Delta Nederland.

Life Cycle Assessment
Life Cycle Assessment studies will be performed in collaboration with the project partners to investigate the environmental footprint of the novel plasma chemistry route to produce acrylonitrile compared with the current chemical production route of acrylonitrile.

The research will be performed at the Sustainability of Chemicals and Materials Group of the Aachen-Maastricht Institute for Biobased Materials and the Circular Chemical Engineering group at Maastricht University; both departments are located at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus.

As a Ph.D. candidate, you will:

• Develop, perform, and validate environmental LCA studies for project-specific targets
• Develop the Life Cycle Inventory for the LCA studies through data collection within the consortium, collection of information in literature resources and databases, extracting data from other sources, such as process modeling in ASPEN;
• Work with a multi-stakeholder project team to develop and discuss research problems;
• Communicate the results of the research to project partners and stakeholders;
• Present your work at international conferences;
• Write scientific papers for international peer-reviewed conferences and journals, and write your Ph.D. thesis.
• Provide teaching assistance and/or supervision within undergraduate and master’s projects and programs.

The Ph.D. research will be performed under the co-supervision of Prof. van Rooij (CCE) and Prof. van der Meer (AMIBM).

Requirements
Specific Requirements

• A Master's degree in a pertinent field such as industrial ecology, sustainable chemistry, chemical engineering, energy science or materials science;
• Acquired training and/or practical experience in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) or similar environmental modelling techniques;
• An understanding of medical practices is considered advantageous;
• Demonstrated keen interest in the subject matter;
• Proven capability to function effectively both independently and within a collaborative team setting;
• Proficiency in both written and spoken English, accompanied by good communication skills;

Proficiency in Dutch would be a valuable supplementary skill, in particular for communication with Dutch stakeholders.

Additional Information
Benefits

As PhD-candidateat Faculty of Science & Engineering, you will be employed by the most international university in the Netherlands, located in the beautiful city of Maastricht. In addition, we offer you:

• Good employment conditions. The position is graded in scale P according to UFO profile PhD-candidate, with corresponding salary based on experience ranging from €2770,00 and €3539,00 gross per month (based on a full-time employment of 38 hours per week). In addition to the monthly salary, an 8.0% holiday allowance and an 8.3% year-end bonus apply.
• An employment contract for a period of 12 months with a scope of 1,0 FTE. Upon a positive evaluation, an extension of 3 years will follow.
• At Maastricht University, the well-being of our employees is of utmost importance, we offer flexible working hours and the possibility to work partly from home if the nature of your position allows it. You will receive a monthly commuting and internet allowance for this. If you work full-time, you will be entitled to 29 vacation days and 4 additional public holidays per year, namely carnival Monday, carnival Tuesday, Good Friday, and Liberation Day. If you choose to accumulate compensation hours, an additional 12 days will be added. Furthermore, you can personalize your employment conditions through a collective labor agreement (CAO) choice model.
• As Maastricht University, we offer various other excellent secondary employment conditions. These include a good pension scheme with the ABP and the opportunity for UM employees to participate in company fitness and make use of the extensive sports facilities that we also offer to our students.
• Last but certainly not least, we provide the space and facilities for your personal and professional development. We facilitate this by offering a wide range of training programs and supporting various well-established initiatives such as 'acknowledge and appreciate'.
  The terms of employment at Maastricht University are largely set out in the collective labor agreement of Dutch Universities. In addition, local provisions specific to UM apply. For more information, click here .

Additional comments

Curious?

Are you interested in this exciting position but still have questions? Feel free to contact Yvonne van der Meer, Chair of the research group Sustainability of Chemicals and Materials at [email protected] for more information.

Applying?
Or are you already convinced and ready to become our new PhD-candidate? Apply now, no later than january 31, 2024 for this position. In case no suitable candidates are found, Maastricht University reserves the right to re-open the vacancy. Send in:

• A cover letter explaining your motivation and suitability for the position. For the suitability part, please refer to the requirements for this position and add a table with an explanation of to what extent you meet each requirement;
• A detailed Curriculum Vitae, including a list of publications and key achievements in research projects;
• Contact information of two references.

The vacancy is open for internal and external candidates. In case of equal qualifications, internal candidates will be prioritized.

Maastricht University is committed to promoting and nurturing a diverse and inclusive community. We believe that diversity in our staff and student population contributes to the quality of research and education at UM, and strive to enable this through inclusive policies and innovative projects led by teams of staff and students. We encourage you to apply for this position.

Website for additional job details

https://www.academictransfer.com/336700/

Work Location(s)

Number of offers available

1

Company/Institute

Maastricht University

Country

Netherlands

City

Maastricht

Postal Code

6229EN

Street

Paul-Henri Spaaklaan 1

Geofield

Where to apply

Website

https://www.academictransfer.com/en/336700/phd-candidate-life-cycle-assessment-…

Contact

City

Maastricht

Website

http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/

Street

Minderbroedersberg 4

Postal Code

6211 LK

STATUS: EXPIRED