Phd Candidate Life Cycle Assessment for a Safe and - Maastricht, Nederland - Maastricht University

Maastricht University

Geverifieerd bedrijf

Maastricht, Nederland

2 weken geleden

Geplaatst door:

Daan Van den Berg

werver van beBee

Beschrijving

Are you passionate about creating breakthroughs for a sustainable and safe chemical industry and do you want to obtain your PhD in a multidisciplinary and challenging environment?

_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.

Develop, perform, and validate environmental LCA studies for projectspecific 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 multistakeholder 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 peerreviewed 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).

Job 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;
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.

What we offer

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 wellbeing 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 fulltime, 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 person