Research Fellow in Sustainable Bio-Solvents

Do you have a strong interest in Developing Processes? Do you have experience in Sustainability and Bio-Solvents? Are you keen to develop your career in Green Chemistry?

Achieving an economic, sustainable and net zero ambition for biogenically derived chemicals is a massive industry-wide challenge. Most solvents are petrochemically derived, and present one of the main wastes in pharma and fine chemical manufacture. The use of bio-derived feedstocks is attractive for making replacement bio-solvents for reasons of low-carbon footprint, however their source and production methods often entrain water and new impurities that are problematic for use in pharma. Current work has shown a bio-source can be used to generate crude bio-acetone and bio-acetonitrile but both require purification before being suitable replacement solvents. The former is used widely for plant cleaning whilst the latter is used in substantial quantity for making oligonucleotide medicines. Post-application recycle and re-use of both solvents will also be investigated.

In this project, you will develop sustainable and cost-effective methods for purifying the bio-solvents, testing low energy membrane drying technologies, assessing the purity of the solvents, investigating how used acetone or acetonitrile can be recycled and optimising protocols to help improve our understanding of the best design, economics and sustainable deployment. This will involve lab-based testing of pervaporation membranes in continuous flow and further purification of the solvent, integrating novel manufacturing methods into an intensified process flowsheet and collaborating on the development of life cycle sustainability assessments through multiple decision criteria.

This project is funded in part by Innovate UK under the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing – Grand Challenge: Industrialising UK Bio-based Solvents for Global Medicine Manufacturing. The University of Leeds are a partner in this project in collaboration with 10 other organisations.

We are open to discussing flexible working arrangements.