(ref. BAP-2018-455)

Employment percentage: Full-time
Location: Leuven / Process Engineering for Sustainable Systems Section
Apply before: Monday, October 15, 2018

The Process Engineering for Sustainable Systems (ProcESS) unit is a dynamic research group in the Department of Chemical Engineering at KU Leuven, consisting of 4 professors and ca. 40 highly motivated researchers. More information on ProCESS can be found on: cit.kuleuven.be/process.
Website unit

Project

The chemical industry in Europe faces stiff competition as it fights to strengthen its position in the global market place. Europe‘s greatest asset is its human capital, but the people working in such a technology-based environment, with the rise of the "smart factories" of Industry 4.0, need to be very well qualified. The situation of yesteryear, where a person could be trained to carry out a job for the whole of his/her career has long since gone; now the situation is one of developing skills and competencies, but then being able to adapt, re-learn and be able to cross sectors and disciplines in a world of work that is dynamic and subject to constant change. Continuous professional development, the stimulation of creative thinking and the motivation of youngsters for science & technology are high on the EU‘s agenda. Recent developments in immersive learning technologies are providing exciting new tools for teaching and training programmes, yet they remain underutilised in science & technology education, and nowhere is this more true than in the field of chemistry and chemical engineering. CHARMING, the European Training Network for CHemicAl EngineeRing IMmersive LearnING, takes on this challenge by developing learning strategies, content and prototypes for the application of games and virtual/augmented reality for motivating, teaching and training children, students and employees in chemistry, chemical engineering and chemical operations. The inter-sectorial and interdisciplinary CHARMING ETN consists of leading universities and industry participants and trains 15 PhD students in the areas of innovative chemical engineering, instructional psychology & pedagogy and immersive technology. CHARMING‘s success is based on integrating these three areas in order to provide Europe with its highly trained young experts who are ready to help motivating, training and integrating the next-generation human capital of the European chemical industry and beyond.

The PhD student working on "Playing process intensification with multifunctional reactors and separators" investigates the integration of chemical unit operations intomultifunctional reactors (e.g., reactive distillation) or hybrid separators (e.g., extractive distillation). Existing flow–sheet models with their associated databases (e.g., Aspen) are investigated to use as chemical technology platforms on which to build VR/AR environments. The reference chemical process is the well-known Eastman Chemical methyl acetate production process that originally consisted of 28 devices and was redesigned to a heavily integrated 3-process-units installation. Based on the extensive thermodynamic data available in the literature, both for the individual and the integrated unit operations (not only of the industrially existing integrated process, but also of newer concepts such as membrane reactors), the task-based design and operation principles of the possible flowsheets are translated into VR/AR concepts. A generic scenario and paper prototype for each case are developed.

The final objective of this PhD study is:

• To apply flow sheet models and databases for chemical-model based AR/VR design;
• To develop AR/VR concepts, scenarios and paper prototypes for areactive and hybrid separation case;
• To develop generic guidelines for the integration of flow sheet models in an AR/VR environment.

Profile

We are looking for a Chemical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer or Physicist with (proven) interest in games and pedagogy.

Offer

We offer you a PhD position in a world-renowned research group where you will have the possibility to interact with many researchers working on a broad range of topics. Moreover, the PhD project fits into the large MSCA-ETN project CHARMING. CHARMING has pooled the interdisciplinary and intersectoral expertise of leading universities and companies in the fields of chemical technology, instructive psychology and immersive technologies, located in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, UK, Denmark and France. The 15 CHARMING PhD students will not only receive state-of-the-art science/technology training but will also benefit from a unique soft-skills training programme. This will kick-start their careers as highly employable professionals in the EU‘s chemicals industry, games/VR/AR sector and the fields of e-learning and digital human resource management, as well as for teaching & scientific organisations and public bodies.

Interested?

For more information please contact Prof. dr. ir. Tom Van Gerven, tel.: +32 16 32 23 42, mail: tom.vangerven@kuleuven.be.

Applications should be done in this first stage via www.charming-etn.eu. Use the application tool present in that website.
You can apply for this job no later than October 15, 2018 via the online application tool.

KU Leuven seeks to foster an environment where all talents can flourish, regardless of gender, age, cultural background, nationality or impairments. If you have any questions relating to accessibility or support, please contact us at diversiteit.HR@kuleuven.be.