Chemical Engineer 3

At PNNL, our core capabilities are divided among major departments called Directorates, each focused on a specific area of scientific research or function. The Energy and Environment Directorate delivers science and technology solutions for the nation’s energy and environmental challenges, supporting the Department of Energy (DOE) in modernizing the power grid, advancing renewable energy, and addressing nuclear and environmental management issues.

The Energy Processes and Materials Division, part of the Energy and Environment Directorate, creates real-world solutions supporting DOE’s goals for national energy security. We deliver technologies connecting fundamental science to applications in energy storage, advanced materials, catalysis, separations, biomass conversions, carbon capture, hydrogen production, and more. Our work employs a systems perspective, integrating discovery, technology development, scale-up, and economic, regulatory, and market considerations for successful commercialization.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical tasks and research activities focused on slurry processing, rheology, particle-laden flow, fouling, deposition, plugging, and flow assurance in continuous-flow systems.
• Design, operate, modify, and troubleshoot experimental systems incorporating pumps, mixers, piping, heat exchangers, valves, instrumentation, and other continuous-flow equipment.
• Plan and execute experiments to investigate slurry transport, particle settling and suspension, pressure drop, mixing, heat transfer, fouling, deposition, erosion, and equipment operability.
• Apply fluid mechanics, rheology, transport phenomena, and engineering analysis to interpret system behavior and identify reliable operating windows.
• Develop and apply mechanistic models, engineering correlations, computational models, or CFD approaches to support process understanding, equipment design, and scale-up.
• Integrate rheological measurements, material characterization, experimental observations, and process data to understand relationships among feed properties, flow behavior, fouling, and equipment performance.
• Identify regions or operating conditions associated with poor mixing, low velocities, particle accumulation, recirculation, deposition, erosion, plugging, or other process limitations.
• Develop and evaluate mitigation strategies involving feed conditioning, pumping and mixing approaches, equipment geometry, operating conditions, materials selection, and cleaning or flushing strategies.
• Translate experimental and modeling results into recommendations for process operation, equipment modification, system design, and scale-up from laboratory to pilot-scale systems.
• Provide technical direction to junior researchers, postdoctoral researchers, technicians, and interns on defined research activities.
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers across fluid mechanics, chemical processing, materials handling, heat transfer, process control, modeling, and equipment design.
• Communicate research results through sponsor deliverables, technical reports, presentations, peer-reviewed publications, and technical meetings.
• Contribute to proposal development, project planning, sponsor interactions, and the development of new research opportunities.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• BS/BA and 5+ years of relevant work experience, or
• MS/MA and 3+ years of relevant work experience, or
• PhD with 1+ year of relevant experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD in chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, mining engineering, mineral processing, food engineering, fluid mechanics, rheology, or a closely related field; or an MS/BS degree with commensurate specialized experience.
• Demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following: slurry processing, rheology, particle-laden flow, multiphase flow, solids transport, fouling, deposition, plugging, or flow assurance.
• Substantial hands-on experience designing, operating, modifying, or troubleshooting continuous-flow or recirculating systems that process solids-containing, concentrated, heterogeneous, viscous, or non-Newtonian materials.
• Experience with slurry pumping, pipeline or piping transport, solids suspension, particle settling, mixing, heat transfer, or flow through complex process equipment.
• Experience investigating and mitigating fouling, deposition, agglomeration, plugging, erosion, wear, or related process-reliability challenges.
• Experience measuring and interpreting rheological properties and connecting those measurements to flow behavior, equipment performance, or process-design decisions.
• Experience developing or applying mechanistic models, engineering correlations, CFD, or other computational approaches to slurry transport, multiphase flow, mixing, heat transfer, or fouling.
• Familiarity with CFD tools such as ANSYS Fluent, OpenFOAM, COMSOL Multiphysics, STAR-CCM+, or comparable platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to independently formulate technical approaches, design experiments, analyze results, troubleshoot complex systems, and draw actionable engineering conclusions.
• Experience translating laboratory-scale results to pilot-scale equipment or supporting process scale-up and equipment-design decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical tasks and coordinate the work of other researchers or technical staff.
• Strong technical writing and communication skills, with a record of publications, presentations, sponsor deliverables, patents, or proposal contributions.
• Experience working with federal sponsors, industry partners, universities, or national laboratory collaborations.
• Direct experience with continuous-flow slurry systems is strongly preferred; experience primarily limited to batch processing does not fully meet the needs of this position.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Flexible work schedules

PNNL is located in eastern Washington State—the dry side of Washington known for its stellar outdoor recreation and affordable cost of living. The Lab’s campus is only a 45-minute flight (or ~3-hour drive) from Seattle or Portland and is serviced by the convenient PSC airport, connected to 8 major hubs.