Research Fellow (Battery Materials Recycling)

Salary: Full time starting salary is normally in the range £36,636 to £46,049 with potential progression once in post to £48,822

Job Summary

This is a fixed-term Research Fellow position funded through HERMES (Hazardous Energy Recycling: Methods for Emerging Specialist Chemistries), a 30-month Innovate UK-funded project led by Recyclus Group Ltd in partnership with the University of Birmingham.

Lithium-metal batteries (LMBs) are widely used across offshore energy, defence, healthcare, and IoT applications but currently have no viable commercial recycling route in the UK — unlike lithium-ion batteries, LMBs remain chemically reactive at end-of-life and pose serious fire, explosion, and emission risks under conventional shredding. This has driven large UK stockpiles and continued reliance on overseas disposal. HERMES will develop and validate a safe shredding and materials-recovery process for LMBs, building on Recyclus' existing commercial lithium-ion recycling capability.

You will join the Energy Materials Group (EMG) in the School of Metallurgy and Materials to identify and validate optimum passivation, discharge, shredding, and materials-separation methods for reactive LMB chemistries, working within your area of specialism and contributing to bid-writing and funding generation as the project develops. This work will directly inform industrial shredder redesign and scale-up, contributing to a first-of-a-kind UK LMB processing capability.

Main Responsibilities

• Design and carry out experimental work to identify and characterise safe discharge and passivation methods for reactive lithium-metal battery chemistries.
• Investigate shredding parameters and processing atmospheres suitable for safely handling LMB cells.
• Develop and evaluate materials separation and recovery methods for shredded battery output streams, assessing recovery efficiency and purity.
• Generate data to inform industrial partner shredder redesign and process scale-up, working closely with their engineering team.
• Conduct safety and hazard assessments of materials and processes.
• Contribute technical input to life-cycle assessment of shredding/passivation routes.
• Prepare technical reports, publications, and conference outputs arising from the research.
• Support supervision of postdoctoral and technician staff and contribute to day-to-day laboratory coordination.

Person Specification

• Hold a Bachelor's degree in a Science or Engineering discipline relevant to the project, or equivalent qualifications.
• Hold, or be close to completion of, a PhD in an area relevant to materials recycling, battery manufacture, minerals or process engineering, chemistry, or mechanical, electronic or chemical engineering.
• Prior knowledge, experience and achievements in mechanical shredding or comminution processes, particle/material separation techniques, battery safety or reactive/hazardous chemistry handling, and analytical characterisation (e.g. ICP-OES, SEM, XRD, or XRF) is highly desirable; however, training will be given to the right candidate in these areas.
• Demonstrably high level of analytical capability; ability to communicate complex information clearly to a diverse audience; ability to work in an interdisciplinary team; ability to coordinate own work with others to avoid conflict or duplication of effort.
• Proven ability to assess resource requirements and use resources effectively.

Informal enquiries can be made to Rob Sommerville (r.sommerville@bham.ac.uk).

To download the full job description and details of this position and submit an electronic application online please click on the 'Apply' button above.

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