Hosting offer for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024: Plasma catalysis for energy applications

Under the Horizon Europe framework program Scientific Excellence pillar, ICB-CSIC is available to be your host institution in the field of Chemical Engineering at the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships call.

The Spanish National Research Council(CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its research is driven by more than 15000 staff including more than 3700 researchers. CSIC has 123 Institutes spread across the country covering areas of Science and Technology. CSIC has a broad experience in conducting R&D projects funded by national and international public agencies and industry. In June 2023, CSIC obtained 203 projects in the Horizon Europe. The Instituto de Carboquímica ICB-CSIC develops the scientific activity in the area of Chemical Science and Technology.

The Environmental Research Group-GIM has a large expertise on developing processes and materials for energy and environment applications in the framework of National and European projects. Recently, our research group has started to develop a research line based on the application of plasma technology to electrify the processes lead by PhD M Victoria Navarro. She has lead several projects and supervised PhD students in Plasma catalysis for CO2 recycling, hierarchical zeolites for pollutant abatement and catalysts for production of H2. She published numerous research papers in high impact journals (Chemical Engineering journal, Chemical Communications, Environmental Science and technology).

We offer a position to develop a project on applying plasma catalysis technology to electrify and enhanced chemical processes such as CO2 capture and valorization with application of novel catalysts with 3D structure. The different physicochemical, morphological and electrical properties of the innovative configuration of this plasma catalysis system will be studied in detail and related by artificial neuronal network with results of conversion and energy efficiency. The same integration approach will be used for the direct conversion of CO2 and gas from gasification to prove the flexibility of this catalytic plasma reactor. The selected candidate will acquire conceptual fluency in current trends in plasma catalysis applications research, in parallel with artificial intelligence to optimization of physicochemical processes.

Eligibility criteria

Applicants must fulfil all the eligibility criteria for MSCA-PF: i) Postdoctoral Researchers of up to 8 years after the PhD, ii) Applicants from any country may apply, but must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the submission deadline (11/09/2024).

Evaluation

Send an expression of interest with title "MSCA application - your name and surname", detail on PF European Fellowship interest, a CV, a summary presentation of the research proposal (2 pages) and the contact information of at least two referees to PhD M Victoria Navarro (navarro@icb.csic.es) by May 15th.

Support program

In addition to receiving multiple feedback from your supervisor, if chosen to submit the proposal to the European Commission, you will also receive advice from a dedicated team in the International Programmes Area at CSIC, who will provide online webminars prepeared with previous succesfull candidates, feedback through the proposal preparation and support through the project development if granted.