Research Associate in Automated High Throughput Development of Bio-based Advanced Materials for Energy Applications

For this position, you will join a multi-university team working on the EPSRC-funded Programme Grant project “Bio-derived and Bio-inspired Advanced Materials for Sustainable Industries”.

The motivation behind this project stems for a realisation that while advanced materials represent 15% of UK GDP and enable advancement of technologies across different sectors, the way the UK currently sources and processes these materials is based on unsustainable practices, be it from the emissions related to the manufacturing approaches and/or the origin of the materials precursors. In this context, the project’s vision is to efficiently convert UK biowaste into high performance engineered advanced materials with tailored properties. Doing this requires: (i) creating a local and sustainable raw materials supply chain, (ii) producing bio-derived advanced materials, and (iii) scaling up and integrating these advanced materials into devices with targeted functionalities. Each of these steps spans a large design space. To address this challenge, we will apply experimental automated high throughout (HT) workflows informed by life cycle analysis and machine learning to screen and optimise precursors processing and advanced materials manufacturing.

You will be based in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial. Your role will be to design and apply automated HT experimental campaigns for cases studies that will support the project. Examplar case studies include the optimisation of: ionomers formulations for use in oxygen reduction reaction, biomass extraction to obtain pure components, ink formulations for 3D printing of electrochemical materials. You will have access to state-of-the-art automated HT facilities at Imperial, i.e. ATLAS and DigiBAT.

You will have:

• a first degree (or equivalent) in Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related discipline and a PhD (or equivalent) in a similar field.
• good theoretical knowledge and practical experience of materials synthesis, materials characterisation, and electrochemistry.
• an ability to work in a large and diverse team collaboratively.
• a track record of oral and written communication skills, including the ability to write high quality publications.
• Experience in using automated high throughput equipment (highly desired but not required).
• Experience working with carbon-based materials (desired but not required).

The post is available for 36 months from June 2024 and based in South Kensington Campus.

Informal enquiries: Professor Petit (camille.petit@imperial.ac.uk) and Professor Titirici (m.titirici @imperial.ac.uk).

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/

The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes where their use is shown to be necessary for developing new treatments and making medical advances. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level.

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-integrity/animal-research/

Imperial College is committed to equality of opportunity, to eliminating discrimination and to creating an inclusive working environment. We are an Athena SWAN Silver award winner, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, a Disability Confident Employer and work in partnership with GIRES to promote respect for trans people.

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