PhD vacancy in the research group ‘Membrane Technology for a Sustainable World’, led by Prof. Patricia Luis at UCLouvain

Profile: Candidate with a Master diploma in the field of Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, or similar. A plus if the candidate has experience with membrane technology and/or enzymatic conversions.

The candidate should have the following aptitudes:

• Willing to work in an international group
• Sociable, team worker, helpful and friendly
• Willing to teach in master or bachelor courses in English and/or in French
• Willing to travel (international conferences)
• English is a mandatory language (high level in writing and spoken English). Other languages spoken within the group are French, Spanish, Dutch, Persian, and Chinese, among others.
• Knowledge of Aspen Plus and SimaPro is a plus point

Status: 1-year PhD grant, renewable for 4 years, starting between 1st March 2023 to 1st October 2023.

Research topic: Continuous Enzymatic Pervaporation: a new era in Green Chemistry and Process Intensification (NewERA).

The NewERA project aims at developing a continuous enzymatic pervaporation process that combines REACTION and SEPARATION together in a CONTINUOUS mode.
Glycerol is considered as a key platform molecule for the production of glycerol carbonate, which also has a wide variety of applications as a component in detergent and personal care compositions, carriers in pharmaceutical preparations and in lithium and lithium-ion batteries, building ecocomposites, solvents, chemical intermediates and polymers, among others. To synthesize glycerol carbonate, glycerol -used as an alcohol source- is reacted with one carbonate source. In this project, the transesterification of glycerol with dimethyl carbonate is selected as a promising conversion route because it mostly produces only methanol as coproduct. A continuous process will be achieved with the application of hollow fiber or tubular membranes which will act as tubular reactors with an optimal residence time, ensuring the complete conversion of reagents over the length of the ‘tube’ and pure glycerol carbonate at the outlet of the reactor.

Application:

If interested, please send your CV, a motivation letter and one or more reference letters by email to:
Prof. Patricia Luis: patricia.luis@uclouvain.be

An interview (online or presential) will be organized with the selected candidates.

+ info research group: https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/immc/imap/membrane-technology.html