VITO is a leading research center in Flanders (Belgium) in the field of technology development for sustainable processes. The Unit of Separation and Conversion Technology (SCT), has a strong focus on innovative routes for chemical processes. VITO’s electrochemistry team has a unique expertise in designing, developing and testing components for advanced electrochemical syntheses.
We develop electrochemical routes for the production of biobased molecules, ammonia and carbon based products from CO2. These developments will allow to power industrial processes directly by renewable energy.
The researchers will compliment the team consisting of professors, permanent researchers, engineers, technicians, and fellow postdoctoral investigators.
You will be dedicatedly working electrocatalyst development to enable new conversions.
You will work advertently towards the project goals, taking responsibility for high quality results and in depth analysis, defining and addressing precise scientific questions.
You will perform lab work, by designing correct experiments and analyse data and develop new scientific hypotheses to test.
You will work in an international team and context.
ENTREPRENEURIAL CEO FOR MEMBRANE SEPARATION TECHNOLOGY STARTUP
Mol
Management
Description:
UAntwerpen and VITO, an independent Flemish research organization, are looking for an entrepreneurial CEO for A-Membranes; A-Membranes is a sustainable separation technology based on functionalized ceramics membranes developed at VITO and UAntwerpen. These have better performance in organic solvents as well as in water and make real affinity separations possible. This technology can compete with and/or replace classical separation technologies as an environmental friendly and more energy efficient alternative (see https://a-membranes.vito.be/en)
The goal is to spin off A-Membranes from VITO/UAntwerpen and to create a management team that will be responsible for building and running the business and raising external capital. The project needs to recruit two team members with capabilities spanning commercial and technological expertise. Before becoming commercially viable, the production of the membranes needs to be upscaled. After this phase, the spin-off should be able to grow in a few years’ time to a company with several million euros of sales.
Are you an ambitious, pragmatic, vision-driven leader with the flexibility to work in an agile way towards a marketable goal? Are you willing to carry out this assignment as a consultant (self-employed) for VITO and UAntwerpen in the first months (starting up in a part-time regime is possible). Read on below.
We are looking for a communicative and driven postdoctoral researcher to strengthen our sustainable health department in VITO for the further development of our immuno peptidomics-platform.
VITO is a leading European independent research and technology organisation in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development, elaborating solutions for the large societal challenges of today. The sustainable health department is developing new applications, measurement methods and biomarkers aimed at preventive health care, health management and preventing disease. The current team, situated in the Centre for Proteomics in Antwerp (a collaboration with University of Antwerp), consists of permanent researchers, laboratory technicians, PhD and postdoctoral students and wishes to expand with an extra postdoctoral researcher. More information available on https://vito.be/en/application-area/environment-health or https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research/publications-and-expertise/core-facilities/core-facilities/centre-for-proteomics/about-us/.
As postdoctoral researcher, you are hired to work on a VLAIO-project in collaboration with different project partners, both academic (Uinversity Antwerp, KULeuven, VUB) and industry partners (amongst others the pharmaceutical industry). The goal is to set-up a more sensitive immuno peptidomics platform for application in the field of colorectal cancer. The project collaboration allows us to combine expertise in oncology, in silico neoantigen prediction, T-cell repertoire profiling, immunogenicity profiling and high sensitive peptidomics. You will have access to state-of-the art equipment, including orbitrap mass spectrometers and Trapped ion mobility Q-Tof.
Your responsibilities: • You will run the project execution in close collaboration with the different project partners. Specifically, you will set up a sensitive immune peptidomic analysis pipeline and perform and coordinate the analysis of samples, provided by other partners in the project. • You will work independently towards the project goal, take responsibility for high quality results and reporting. • You communicate regularly with laboratory technicians as well as proteome scientists, bioinformaticians and statisticians. • You attend the project meetings, who are led by a senior researcher of VITO. • You mentor Master and PhD-students working on the same subject.
EnergyVille is a collaboration between the Flemish research partners VITO, KU Leuven, imec and UHasselt in the field of sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems. VITO is looking for an excellent researcher to add competence to the interdisciplinary energy market team (economics, business administration, applied mathematics, electrical & mechanical engineering).
You will be involved in several research and consultancy projects as expert on modelling and assessment of energy markets including e.g. clearing mechanism, product system, spatial and temporal organization. Concrete, the markets in scope cover electricity extended to multi-carrier markets for gas and heat: from day-ahead markets to real-time balancing including system services. You will model markets as mathematical problems formulated as optimization problems, and also as games capturing market participant behavior. Modelling language include Python and Julia. You will be based in VITO/EnergyVille in Thor Park Genk, Belgium.
As Expert Energy market modelling, you will
Collaborate within the energy market team on varied projects.
Develop and assess new concepts for energy markets and products, and create insights on innovative market design for all the involved stakeholders in the energy landscape.
Formulate mathematical problems for different (multi-carrier) energy market designs applying optimization and game theory, optionally including the individual decision-making of market participants.
Implement and develop solutions/algorithms for the formulated problems in Python/Julia using mathematical solvers.
Translate your findings in relevant policy and strategy advise to relevant stakeholders including regulators, policy makers, system operators and industry.
Contribute to writing (parts of) project proposals and offers to tenders.
Manage defined tasks and budget related to your area of expertise.
PHD POSITION 3D STRUCTURED SORBENTS FOR METAL RECOVERY FROM LIQUID STREAMS.
Mol
PhD
Description:
Within the Unit of Sustainable Materials Management, there are ongoing research projects on the production and use of structured sorbent materials, e. g. porous microspheres or coatings, focusing on closing materials cycle. One of the tracks of the KMP (Ceramic Materials and Powder Metallurgy) team is the separation of valuables such as rare earth elements (REE) and precious or critical metals.
Different liquid streams may be identified, such as polluted waters or complex low grade industrial waste streams, on which adsorption using tailored sorbents is the most applicable technology. These are complex streams which different characteristics. For example, industrial wastewaters released in the environment having mild pH (~6 - 8), while complex hydrometallurgical leachates are characterized high pH (>12). Therefore, for their application, the sorbents have to be developed to address needs related not only with their sorption features (capacity, kinetics, selectivity) but also to meet requirements related with mechanical and chemical stability.
The PhD aims at the development of 3D structured sorbent materials with innovative composition for the removal of toxic heavy metals or separation and recovery of critical and economically valuable metals from complex liquid streams with pH ranging from neutral to highly alkaline values (>12).
The research will be conducted mainly from powder to structured materials, with focus on structural related aspects (for enhanced sorption properties and material stability under the (harsh) experimental conditions, e. g. high alkalinity) as well as architectural related aspects (enable ease of handling and lowering pressure drop).
For this project, we collaborate with the University of Antwerp (LADCA) on the basis of the granted joint patent on the production of sorbent materials for adsorption of metal oxyanions (e.g. chromates) (WO2019122398).
Collaboration with University of Antwerp Registration deadline: 09/07/2020
PHD POSITION NANOSTRUCTURING THE SURFACE OF POROUS TITANIUM 3D STRUCTURES.
Mol
PhD
Description:
Within the last decade, porous metals have found their way into many industrial applications. This has been enabled among others by the recent progress made in 3D printing and other additive manufacturing technologies. Biomedical implants for bone replacement, structured catalyst architectures previously impossible to manufacture and a variety of highly designed industrial parts are just some examples.
In order to really benefit from the freedom of design, both the structural architecture and the surface characteristics of the 3D material need to be tuned towards the requirements set for a specific application. The interaction of a fluid or a gas within the porous material occurs at its surface and is typically governed by the combination of the chemical nature, morphology, porosity and roughness of the surface. As such, they are of primordial importance for the final performance of the materials.
The progress in manufacturing porous metals and the trend towards finer feature sizes of the porous architecture necessitate the development of new ways to change the surface of the porous material. One example of an alternative approach for the conventional wash- or dipcoating could be a chemical treatment like e.g. an alkali treatment. Depending on the process parameters, a wide variety of titanates with different surface morphologies can be formed by reaction with e.g. the titanium metal.
As such, this PhD project will explore innovative approaches for tuning the surface characteristics on porous titanium parts which are manufactured by an in-house developed3D micro-extrusion process.
POSTDOC DEVELOPMENT OF MICROFLUIDIC-BASED ROUTE FOR MATERIAL SYNTHESIS
Mol
Postdoc
Description:
VITO is a a leading European independent research in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development. Its research programme ‘Sustainable Materials Management’ has the ambition to accelerate the transition to a more circular economy from a materials perspective. One of our core research activities is the development of technologies for shaping powders into added value products (granulates, microspheres, 3D-structures, foams,…) for use in different industrial applications, like separation of valuable compounds, advanced catalyst materials and energy storage. Recently we invested in our technology platform to broaden the range of material compositions and architectures. The use of flow reactors for chemical applications has become a fast growing area for a wide range of reaction types. The control over fluid dynamics is outstanding in microreactors enabling the construction of highly precise controlled architectures such as spherical particles. As a post-doctoral fellow you will take an important role in the implementation of the technology for the development of uniformly shaped (hybrid) ceramic particles. The key challenges for material synthesis using a droplet micro reactor are the chemistry of the starting composition and the optimisation of the flow conditions. Particularly of interest is the use of sol-gel based systems, since they allow the synthesis of micro sized particles (1-100 µm). Flow environments (time, flow rate, pH, temperature) and junction size are the main parameters to control the droplet size and the synthesis chemistry of the final particles. In our two year post-doctoral research project we will focus on the development of novel material concepts for metal scavengers and chromatography. A well equipped lab is available for the full material characterization.
