PhD student position in Polymer Technology on Plastic Thermoelectrics

The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering promotes research and education for sustainable development, for improved health and quality of life. Our research ranges from natural science and bioscience, applied chemistry and biotechnology to chemical engineering. Our educational programs are characterized by technological solutions for improving people’s everyday life, and are continuously developed for meeting and promoting societal and industrial development.

We have approximately 400 employees, divided into five research divisions and one administrative unit. We are situated at campus Johanneberg.

Our department is characterized by stimulation of world leading research, in an environment where people develop and create new knowledge.Information about the research group
The research of our group is focused on bulk polymers and organic electronics with an aim to produce new knowledge that can be used to develop new products and improved processes. All research is conducted in co-operation with industries and/or universities/institutes. Presently, the group consists of 1 Assistant Professor and 4 PhD students.

Major responsibilities
Thermoelectric power generators are solid-state devices that directly convert heat flow to electricity. Unique advantages are their scalability and ability to function with small heat sources and limited temperature differences. Thin and flexible designs that can cover large areas are particularly suited for waste recovery in industrial settings from chimneys to data centres. On the other hand, a miniature power source would be of great benefit for the myriad of autonomous electronic components such as wireless sensors and identification tags that are envisaged to make up tomorrow’s Internet of Things. Without doubt, large-area as well as small-scale applications will only become viable if cost-effective and robust materials with good thermoelectric properties can be identified.
 
The focus of the advertised project is on developing new organic thermoelectric materials that can be processed from solution in order to facilitate cost-effective printing on large-area substrates. One promising class of thermoelectric materials are composites of conjugated polymers and conductive fillers such as carbon nanotubes or graphene. The exact nanostructure of these composites is critical for obtaining an optimum thermoelectic performance, that is a high electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient but low thermal conductivity.

The majority of your working time will be devoted to your own research studies including processing and structural characterisation of polymer semiconductor materials as well as electronic measurements. As a PhD student you are expected to develop your own ideas and communicate scientific results orally as well as in writing. In addition, the position will normally include 5% departmental work, mostly teaching duties.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. The employment is limited to a maximum of four years of full-time research studies.

Qualifications
To qualify as a PhD student, you must have a master's level degree corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits in Chemistry or Materials Science with a focus on Polymer Science and Technology or Nanotechnology.

Good capability of communicating scientific results in English, both orally and in writing. The undergraduates are normally taught in Swedish, although the graduate level teaching is in English. Applicants who do not have Swedish as their native language are encouraged to learn Swedish during the first two years of employment. Chalmers offers Swedish courses.

Application procedure
The application should be marked with Ref 20130385 and written in English. The application should be sent electronically via Chalmers webpage.

Application deadline: December 31, 2013

For questions, please contact:
Christian Müller, Applied Chemistry, KB; christian.muller@chalmers.se; +46 31 772 34 06




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