This 2 year position is open to applicants who have (or have submitted) a PhD in Chemical Engineering or a relevant engineering field. You must have prior experience of modelling multiphase flows using CFD, in particular gas/liquid interfacial flows. A good knowledge of chemical engineering equipment design and relevant engineering skills that will be applied towards scale-up would be desirable. It would be preferable if you had previously engaged with industry.

The objective of this industry-led project is to conduct a feasibility study for an innovative concept to reduce the costs of post-combustion CO₂ capture in power plants. You will develop numerical models for Gas-Liquid interfacial flows within structured packings using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes. This will be followed by a second phase to condense the results of the models towards implementation, design and scale-up towards a large-scale application for power plants with CO₂ capture. The project seeks to develop a novel unit operation to reduce the costs of CCS so that it can be commercially deployed by the 2020s, and involves a strong interaction with our industry partner Costain Oil & Gas Process, a leading equipment manufacturer in the oil-and-gas and power sectors.

You should have (or have submitted) a PhD or have equivalent experience in Chemical or Mechanical Engineering or a relevant engineering field. You must have relevant modelling expertise (preferably including use of Aspen Plus) and ability to understand physical systems where thermofluids principles are important. An excellent knowledge and understanding of the energy sector, including insights from industrial engagement/experience is also desirable.

You will work on two recently funded projects that will contribute to design and development of effective, flexible carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems for power plants.

The first project is funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Innovation Programme in CCS and involves a strong interaction with an industry partner; Costain Oil & Gas Process, which is a leading equipment manufacturer in the oil-and-gas and power sectors. The successful applicant will be involved in simulation studies to explore solutions to reduce the key energy penalties related to oxyfuel combustion at coal and biomass-fired power plants through the novel application of innovative CO₂ separation and compression technology.

The second project is funded by the UK CCS Research Centre (www.ukccsrc.ac.uk) and involves collaborative work with pipeline engineers at the University of Newcastle, and other staff within the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh. The aim of this project is to carry out research to enable the production of design and operating guidelines for CCS pipeline networks. The successful applicant will be the lead researcher for the University of Edinburgh and will explore constraints that the CO₂ capture and storage system might place on the CO₂ transport system. This will include novel work quantifying if and how interim/buffer storage of CO₂, incorporated within the capture plant and storage system, might impact on CO₂ transport network operating requirements.

Deadline for both applications: 2013-04-22

Application should be submitted through the University of Edinburgh Human Resources website
https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk/

Reference number Position 1: 012005
Reference number Position 2: 012063