PREDOCTORAL RESEARCHER (PhD position: Designing a robust membrane distillation process)

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JOB

• Job location:  ICRA – Catalan Institute for Water Research, Girona, Spain
• Number of positions available: 1
• Expected start: December 2021
• Temporal position. The position is for 36 months (approximately)
• Gross Annual Salary package: According to Spanish regulations for PreDoctoral Researchers (Additional benefits: tuition fees)

JOB PURPOSE / PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Do you want to conduct a PhD in close contact with industry? Within a large European Commission project that gives you frequent international exposure? Excited about membrane processes and the green transformation of industry and society?

The Ph.D. position is open in the framework of an EU funded H2020 project: iWAYS (Innovative WAter recoverY Solutions through recycling of heat, materials and water across multiple sectors). iWAYS project started in December 2020, will last four years and involves a dynamic consortium of 20 EU partners (10 research center or university; 4 industries; 6 SMEs). Details about the project can be found in the EU platform  and the  project website

The project ambition is to develop and promote water closed loop implementation practices in industrial processes by recycling industrial waters in combination with heat and/or substances in energy and resource intensive industries. Within this project, ICRA is transversally involved in tasks related to water treatment and recovery and will be leading implementation of a pilot distillation membrane-based system adapted to industrial wastewater characteristics. The research technician/Ph.D candidate will be conducting the core work in that regard at within ICRA Technology and Evaluation area  team.

Objectives of the position:

• Develop and test a novel membrane distillation system that is suited to robust operation in industrial conditions, operating on feedwater with high fouling propensity.
• Conduct lab-scale experiments with the objective to design a pilot-scale membrane distillation plant and supporting its operation.
• Develop Innovative optimization approaches to tackle optimization of quantitative and qualitative transmembrane flux while limiting the fouling, scaling and eventually wetting of the membranes.

The successful candidate is expected to enter a plan for the progress of the work towards a Ph. D. degree during the first months of the appointment. The candidate will directly collaborate with the PI and Ph.D supervisor (Pr. Wolfgang Gernjak) and another research engineer (Dr. Morgan Abily) with a view to completing a doctorate within the contract period at UdG and with Ph.D. activities in line with the project milestones and deliverables including scientific publications.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Characterize the physico-chemical properties of the industrial inlet feed flow; formulation of the technology concept; experimental proof of concept and validation in laboratory
• Lead the laboratory scale experimentations for optimization:
  • Design of laboratory experiments on membrane distillation transmembrane flux controlling and scaling/fouling/wetting limiting.
  • Adapt the laboratory experiments to develop at pilot level new optimized methodology of membrane distillation operation.
• Co-design pilot plant and pilot-plant experimentation in collaboration with other ICRA staff and industry partners
• Data interpretation of lab-scale and pilot-scale, including modelling of the former.
• Author at least 2-3 publications in internationally scientifically indexed journals.
• 2-3 presentations at international scientific conferences and participation in the iWAYS consortium activities as an ICRA representative.