PhD on Bio-inspired carbon-sequestered lightweight plaster for sustainable buildings

KU Leuven is consistently ranked among the top 50 universities in the world, and number 1 in Belgium. Moreover, KU Leuven has been repeatedly recognized as Europe’s most innovative university. Embedded with KU Leuven’s Department of Materials Engineering, the Bruges campus focuses strongly on (i) polymer processing in the Propolis research group and (ii) functional materials in the interfacial engineering research (iR) group. The iR group is multidisciplinary team of chemical, electromechanical, and civil engineers working at the frontier of materials interfaces within the domains of stimuli-responsive materials, energy storage materials, and carbon capture, utilization and storage. The group has many collaborations with other research groups from civil engineering, materials science and chemical engineering.

Project

This PhD position is part of the FWO-funded project ECOSPHERE, which aims to develop a new class of sustainable building materials by directly converting CO2 into functional carbonates that function as carbon negative, high performance fillers in coatings and plasters.
This PhD will focus on improving CO2 capture efficiency through the use of a novel type of chemicals and converting CO2 to functional carbonates for their application in the development of lightweight, insulating gypsum plaster.
This position lies at the intersection of green chemistry, carbon capture and utilization, building materials, and sustainable construction technology.

Profile

The candidate has:

• A European Master’s degree (or obtained before starting the PhD) in Engineering Technology, Materials Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Nanoscience, Sustainable Materials, or a closely related field, and ranks within the top 10% of his/her class.
• Strong interest in CO2 capture, green chemistry, mineral binders, and/or novel solvents.
• Motivation to work across disciplines and collaborate within a dynamic research team.
• Excellent communication skills in English, and willingness to present their research results and national and international conferences, social media, and to write research papers for publication in international peer-reviewed journals.
• Willingness to contribute in teaching activities and co-supervision of undergraduate projects
• Willingness to write a PhD fellowship proposal
• Flexibility, good time management skills and self-discipline, skills to work independently and in a team
• A creative, critical, analytical and innovative mindset
• Experience as a researcher or in industry is a plus
• Hands on experience with any of the following is an advantage: SEM, TEM, XRD, FTIR, TGA, DSC, NMR; Deep eutectic solvents; Plaster materials; Building material formulation and characterization
• Authored or co-authored peer-reviewed publications is a plus.
• Communication skills in Dutch is a major advantage

Offer

The successful candidate will be hired as a PhD researcher at KU Leuven, one of Europe’s leading research universities. We offer a full time one year contract which can be prolonged to four years upon positive evaluation. Your main working place is the campus in Bruges with access to a large number of facilities. The candidate will have the possibility to contribute to high-impact sustainable technologies with real industrial relevant, and work within a dynamic team of excellent researchers and be supported by a supervisory team providing structured PhD mentoring.

Interested?

For more information please contact Prof. dr. Veerle Vandeginste, mail: [emailprotected].

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