Postdoc

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. Particullary 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.