Posting Title
Postdoctoral Researcher – Advanced Separations for Plastic and Metal Circularity
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Location
CO - Golden
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Position Type
Postdoc (Fixed Term)
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Hours Per Week
40
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Working at NREL
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado is the nation's primary laboratory for research and development of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
From day one at NREL, you’ll connect with coworkers driven by the same mission to save the planet. By joining an organization that values a supportive, inclusive, and flexible work environment, you’ll have the opportunity to engage through our ten employee resource groups, numerous employee-driven clubs, and learning and professional development classes.
NREL supports inclusive, diverse, and unbiased hiring practices that promote creativity and innovation. By collaborating with organizations that focus on diverse talent pools, reaching out to underrepresented demographics, and providing an inclusive application and interview process, our Talent Acquisition team aims to hear all voices equally. We strive to attract a highly diverse workforce and create a culture where every employee feels welcomed and respected and they can be their authentic selves.
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We invite all interested candidates to apply for this opportunity. While we recognize that job seekers may hesitate if they don’t meet every requirement, we encourage dedicated individuals who meet all the basic and additional required qualifications of the role to submit an application. We value the opportunity to consider those who believe they have the necessary skills and ambition to succeed at NREL.
Job Description
About NREL: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, is the nation's primary laboratory for research, development, and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. The NREL mission is to develop renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and practices, advance related science and engineering, and transfer knowledge and innovation to address the nation’s energy and environmental goals.
About the project: This position is within the Renewable Resources and Enabling Sciences Center, which is part of the Bioenergy Science and Technology Directorate. Our Bioseparations Group is conducting research to enable scalable, cost-effective processes to enable circularity of a wide range of waste feedstocks. Specifically, this appointment will focus on developing innovative separations processes for valorization of carbon from deconstructed plastics and recovery of critical minerals and materials from electronic wastes and other metal-containing feedstocks. Developing sustainable approaches to valorize carbon from waste plastics is critical to realize a circular plastics economy, and separations remains a key challenge. Similarly, separations of critical minerals and materials, including rare earth elements and battery metals, remains a key driver of the environmental footprint and cost for electronic waste and battery recycling. Thus, development of advanced separations for plastics-derived chemicals and electronic waste-derived metals is central towards realizing a circular economy and supporting the clean energy transition.
Specifically, in the area of plastics chemical recycling, this position will expand upon recent work (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo4626) to develop liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) methods for the recovery of monomers from depolymerized plastic streams, enable these methods in continuous mode operation, and recover preparative quantities of monomers from the process streams. Other separations approaches will be developed for the recovery of homogeneous catalysts and solvents. In the area of critical material circularity, this position will develop and deploy advanced chromatographic and LLE methods for separations of metals for recovery of valuable and critical metals from waste feedstocks, including using simulated moving bed processes.
This position is part of an interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers. The successful candidate will work well in large multidisciplinary teams, publish peer-reviewed journal articles, and present their work at conferences.
The successful candidate will be able to:
- Design, execute, and troubleshoot experiments in collaboration with other researchers
- Exhibit strong creative thinking skills and problem-solve to overcome technical challenges
- Analyze data to generate strong conclusions, including via application of statistical tests
- Collaborate productively with others both within and across disciplines
- Communicate effectively, with the ability to present technical results to a broad audience including at scientific conferences and internal meetings
- Author peer-reviewed publications
- Display respect to peers and stewardship of shared laboratory spaces
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Basic Qualifications
Must be a recent PhD graduate within the last three years.
* Must meet educational requirements prior to employment start date.
Additional Required Qualifications
- Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, or a closely related field with an emphasis on separations processes and engineering completed within the past 3 years.
- Expertise and experience in designing, operating, and scaling novel separations processes, including LLE
- Experience developing and deploying novel adsorbents and green chemistries for efficient and economical separation processes
- Experience with simulated moving bed processes, including modeling and optimization
Preferred Qualifications
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Job Application Submission Window
The anticipated closing window for application submission is up to 30 days and may be extended as needed.
Annual Salary Range (based on full-time 40 hours per week)
Job Profile: Postdoctoral Researcher / Annual Salary Range: $73,200 - $120,800
NREL takes into consideration a candidate’s education, training, and experience, expected quality and quantity of work, required travel (if any), external market and internal value, including seniority and merit systems, and internal pay alignment when determining the salary level for potential new employees. In compliance with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, a potential new employee’s salary history will not be used in compensation decisions.
Benefits Summary
Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance; short-term disability insurance*; pension benefits*; 403(b) Employee Savings Plan with employer match*; life and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance; personal time off (PTO) and sick leave; and paid holidays. NREL employees may be eligible for, but are not guaranteed, performance-, merit-, and achievement- based awards that include a monetary component. Some positions may be eligible for relocation expense reimbursement.
* Based on eligibility rules
Badging Requirement
NREL is subject to Department of Energy (DOE) access restrictions. All employees must also be able to obtain and maintain a federal Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card as required by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), which includes a favorable background investigation.
Drug Free Workplace
NREL is committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace in accordance with the federal Drug-Free Workplace Act and complies with federal laws prohibiting the possession and use of illegal drugs. Under federal law, marijuana remains an illegal drug.
If you are offered employment at NREL, you must pass a pre-employment drug test prior to commencing employment. Unless prohibited by state or local law, the pre-employment drug test will include marijuana. If you test positive on the pre-employment drug test, your offer of employment may be withdrawn.
Submission Guidelines
Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at NREL you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified. Applications are not kept on file for future positions. Please include a cover letter and resume with each position application.
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EEO Policy
NREL is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, domestic partner status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws.
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