[ES_JOBS_NET] Open PhD student position on Critical Raw Material recovery post on ES-Jobs Net List

[Case van Genuchten]

Hello,

The Geochemistry Department of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) has posted an open position for a 3-year full time PhD student position with formal enrollment at the University of Copenhagen.

Link to job description and application submission website: PhD student to develop new methods for Critical Raw Material recovery from waste streams (hr-manager.net)<https://candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationInit.aspx?cid=5001&ProjectId=176915&DepartmentId=6149&MediaId=2436&SkipAdvertisement=False&uiculture=en>



PhD Student Opportunity: Develop New Methods to Recover Critical Raw Materials from Waste Streams (3-year, full-time, University of Copenhagen and Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland)

Project description
Many waste streams from essential services, such as drinking water treatment, have long been viewed as worthless by-products that require disposal via costly and unsustainable landfilling. However, the value of these waste streams is currently being redefined. Specifically, arsenic (As) has a global reputation as a toxic contaminant in drinking water, but in 2023, As was classified as a Critical Raw Material (CRM) in the EU and USA due to its growing use in high-value products needed for the Green Transition, including batteries and high-speed electronics. In addition, phosphorus (P) and antimony (Sb) are also valuable CRMs that occur at high levels in waste streams, including drinking water treatment sludge and the ash from municipal solid waste incinerators. With the recent CRM classification of P, As and Sb, these elements are also subject to the EU’s CRM Act, which sets recycling benchmarks for domestic production of all CRMs.
Unfortunately, these waste streams continue to be viewed by the water treatment and waste management sectors with a linear-economic perspective, rather than being tapped for their high CRM recovery potential. This is largely due to the technical challenges of separating and upcycling P, As and Sb from heterogenous waste mixtures.
This project aims to develop new CRM recovery technologies that extract P and As from drinking water treatment sludge and P and Sb from incinerator fly ash and convert each element into valuable compounds. These technologies will be based on chemical and electrochemical methods to first separate each CRM from their specific waste stream and subsequently purify and valorize each CRM. These objective can be performed, for example, by exploiting the different (electro)chemical properties of P, As and Sb, such as reduction potential, aqueous chemistry or affinity for binding to mineral surfaces. The PhD student will focus primarily on P, but will work closely with senior and post-doctoral researchers investigating As and Sb recovery from the same waste streams. This project also includes many potential opportunities for international research stays and field work in Berkeley, California and South Asia (i.e., West Bengal, India), where As contamination of groundwater poses a catastrophic health threat. Based on the potentially wide range of methods that can be used to recover resources from these wastes, a variety of expertise can contribute to this project. Therefore, qualified PhD students can have diverse technical backgrounds and interests, including environmental engineering, soil, environmental, physical, geo- and colloid chemistry and materials science.
The project is a collaboration between the Department of Geochemistry at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) and the Plant and Environmental Science (PLEN) Department at the University of Copenhagen. As such, the PhD student will be employed by GEUS with co-supervision by a senior researcher in the Department of Geochemistry and will be enrolled at UCPH with co-supervision by PLEN faculty.

Your qualifications

The appointment will be made on the basis of academic qualifications. You should have a MSc degree in environmental engineering, (nano)-geochemistry, electrochemistry, materials science or similar field or equivalent qualifications, and hands-on laboratory experience. The PhD student is also expected to have the following qualifications and interests:

  *   Previous field work experience or interest in developing field work expertise is a plus, particularly in rural areas of South Asia
  *   Interest or experience in synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy and high-energy X-ray scattering methods to probe the structure and surface chemistry of (nano-scale) minerals is also a plus.
  *   Curious and creative mind-set with a strong interest in technology design and sustainable solutions.

Ability to teach undergraduate courses and proficiency in electrochemical methods is an advantage. But most importantly, we are searching for a highly talented, independent, motivated, and self-driven person who enjoys interfacing with researchers from different disciplines.


Further information

Please contact the Head of Department, Claus Kjøller, on tel. +45 5172 8202, e-mail: clkj at geus.dk<mailto:clkj at geus.dk> or Senior Researcher, Case van Genuchten on tel. +45 9133 3433, e-mail: cvg at geus.dk.<mailto:cvg at geus.dk>

Foreign applicants can read more about living and working in Denmark on GEUS’ website: https://eng.geus.dk/about/jobs-and-education/


Application

The application must include a CV, bachelor and master’s certificate or a pre-approval of your thesis and any contact details of referees (max. 2). If the master’s degree has not yet been completed or the certificate has not been issued, a statement from the supervisor is required stating the expected completion date and whether the candidate is suitable for PhD study.

You can send your application by clicking on the “Apply for position” (“Søg stillingen”) button. Your application must be with GEUS no later than 8 March 2024.

Applications received after the deadline will not be considered.



Case


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Case M van Genuchten, PhD | Senior Researcher | Department of Geochemistry | Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland | Work address: Oester Voldgade 10 (Room 213), 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark | tel. +45 53 58 88 70| cvg at geus.dk|<mailto:cvg at geus.dk%7C> Orcid ID: 0000-0002-6697-0697 | researchgate.net/profile/case_genuchten | Twitter: @Dr_CVG

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