Last application date Nov 15, 2024 00:00
Department TW11 - Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering
Contract Limited duration
Degree Master degree in Chemical Engineering Technology or Chemical Engineering or equivalent degree
Occupancy rate 100%
Vacancy type Research staff
The INCAT team at Ghent University (https://incat.ugent.be) is looking for a qualified and motivated candidate to pursue a Ph.D. in catalyst development and catalytic testing of lignin and its performance testing in lignin depolymerization.
INCAT aspires to advance the catalytic conversion of biomass-derived streams, focusing on their upgrading and separation into valuable chemicals, with a strong application-oriented goal. The group has extensive experience in the depolymerization and modification of lignin, utilizing advanced techniques to characterize lignin and its reaction products during depolymerization. Moreover, INCAT is pioneering novel analytical methods (e.g., 2D-LC, pyrolysis-GCxGC-MS) to enable even more comprehensive analyses.
Your research will focus on developing innovative catalysts for lignin depolymerization. Specifically, you will design, synthesize, and characterize novel heterogeneous catalysts, and evaluate their performance. The screening will cover both mild reductive and oxidative depolymerization, conducted in both batch and continuous-flow reactors. Additionally, you will perform detailed analyses of the resulting product pools. Following the initial screening, a more thorough investigation of the impact of operating conditions will be carried out on one or two of the most promising catalysts.
WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU
Send your CV, personal motivation letter, academic diplomas, certificate of knowledge of English language, knowledge of catalysis and/or catalyst development, and contact information of three reference persons, to An.Verberckmoes@ugent.be, indicating “Application: PhD in lignin depolymerization” in the subject.
Ghent University is one of the top 100 universities in the Dutch language area, with more than 44,000 students and 15,000 staff members.
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