Research Associate in LCA/MFA of Regional Petrochemical Systems

This is an exciting opportunity for a skilled and motivated postdoctoral researcher, with an interest in working at the interface of industrial ecology and chemical engineering to support the decarbonisation of the petrochemical industry, to join our team at the Institute of Sustainability and Climate Change. This project aims to understand how future changes in demand for polymers, chemicals and transport fuels interact with changes in petrochemical production systems, and under which conditions the most significant reductions in life-cycle GHG emissions can be achieved. You will be playing a key role in the global effort to deliver Net Zero.

About the role

In this research position, you will play a key role in developing an integrated, regional-scale, whole-system model of the petrochemical system, from feedstocks through to polymer production and end-of-life treatment. Specifically, You will:

• Build on models of the petrochemical system at global scale, previously developed at Bath, to create regional Material Flow Analysis (MFA) / Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models of current production routes and their emissions.
• Work with other members of the research team (based at the University of Sheffield) to integrate their process modelling and production data analysis into the regionalised model to represent current operation and emissions.
• Again working with the wider project research team, model future scenarios and changes in demand and in process characteristics and production routes, and their effect on emissions.

The role is advertised at Grade 7, but a lower grade offer may be made (Grade 6) with comparable reduction in responsibilities and amendment in job title to Research Assistant, if a suitable applicant cannot be found to fill the Grade 7 position. In this case, applicants will need to be within six months of their course completion date and will be promoted to Research Associate once their PhD has been awarded. 

This research project is an industry collaboration jointly with the University of Sheffield.

As a member of Research Staff at the University of Bath, you will be encouraged to take up a minimum of 10 days professional development pro rata per year.

Our ideal candidate will have:

• A PhD in a relevant subject area.
• Expertise in process-based Material Flow Analysis and/or Life Cycle Assessment, or experience in other relevant modelling / data analysis projects and a proven ability to learn and apply new modelling approaches.
• Good organisational and presentation skills.
• The ability to work well in an interdisciplinary environment, with academic and industrial partners.

Ideally, you will have knowledge of chemical engineering and/or polymers and related products and systems — or, perhaps you have instead a strong ability for interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers in chemical engineering, and a willingness to learn.

In our group, we work with Python, version control, and similar tools for developing and sharing research code and models. If you like working in this way, that's great, but also many are new to this, and we'll support you to learn as appropriate.

Further Information

This position is offered on a full-time (36.5 hours per week) fixed-term basis with an expected end date of 06 November 2027. 

For informal discussions please contact:

Rick Lupton, Senior Lecturer rcl38@bath.ac.uk & Alfred Hill, Lecturer ce9ah@bath.ac.uk.

What we can offer you

We have an excellent international reputation with staff from over 60 different nations and have made a positive commitment towards gender equality and intersectionality receiving a Silver Athena SWAN award. 

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