PhD student position in Structural battery composites

Join our research team focused on structural battery composite materials. As a PhD student you will collaborate with experts in materials science, physics, chemistry and computational mechanics. Your responsibility will be to contribute to the in-situ characterisation of structural battery composites and their constituents. As part of your work, you will synthesize structural battery composites using test methods that we develop at Chalmers.

Project description
With this project, you will have the opportunity to work on challenging but inspiring tasks. In the first phase, you will learn how to synthesise and characterise structural battery composites in our labs. Here, we use carbon fibres as the negative electrode and LFP-coated carbon fibres as positive electrode. The electrodes are separated by an ultra-thin separator, and all is impregnated by a structural electrolyte. In parallel, you will learn how to perform in situ tests during high resolution imaging and scattering experiments. Finally, we will conduct such in situ tests on the structural battery (half-cell or / and full cell).

As a PhD student, you will be central to the project developments. You are expected to develop your own scientific concepts and communicate the results of your research verbally and in writing. Your research activities will contribute to enhanced knowledge in the scientific field, in particular by presenting your results in scientific journals and at international conferences.

According to the requirements set by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Doctoral Network programme, eligible candidates must be doctoral candidates, i.e., not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the date of the recruitment. The candidate must also not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Sweden for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date.

The gross salary is the sum of Living Allowance EUR 4264, the Mobility Allowance EUR 600, and the Family Allowance EUR 660 (if applicable) as specified by the MSCA DN grant. The salary is subject to taxation and social contributions. Chalmers guarantees the starting salary of the position is minimum 31 600 SEK (incl. tax).

For more information you find a recent video on massless energy storage - a structural battery with record performance on YouTube.

Information about the division and the department
The position placed at the Division of Material and Computational Mechanics is meritorious for future research duties within academia as well as in industry and the public sector. As part of your engagement at the division you will be expected to teach (up to 20 % of the time). This experience will further prepare you for future academic jobs, but also for communication tasks in industry.

The work will be carried out in close collaboration with Prof. Leif Asp at the Division of Material and Computational Mechanics, Chalmers University of Technology and Prof. Jens Wenzel Andreasen at DTU Energy, Technical University of Denmark, as well as Prof. Marianne Liebi at the School of Engineering, Institute of Materials, EPFL, Switzerland.

Major responsibilities
Your major responsibility as a PhD student is to pursue your own doctoral studies related to the project. The major goal of the project is to develop techniques and perform in-situ characterisation of structural battery composites and their constituents under combined electrochemical and mechanical load. You are expected to develop your own scientific concepts and communicate the results of your research verbally and in writing. Your research activities will contribute to enhanced knowledge in the scientific field, in particular by presenting your results in scientific journals and at international conferences.

In addition to the research project, you will also take courses on the advanced level within the Graduate school in Materials Science. The position also includes teaching courses within Chalmers' undergraduate level, or performing other duties at the department, corresponding to up to 20 percent of working hours.

Qualifications
We expect that you are a highly motivated and self-propelled person, with a distinct interest in materials science. You need to have a master's degree in Engineering Physics, Materials Engineering, Chemistry or Chemical Engineering, Solid Mechanics or similar, with documented high competence in materials characterization. Furthermore, good capabilities in programming are a required. Experience in composite materials is favourable. To qualify as a PhD student, you must have a master's level degree corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits in a relevant field.

Education in numerical analysis and programming is meritorious.

Since communication of knowledge results towards academic and industrial partners is a central part of the work, communicative skills in English (oral as well as in writing) are vital. Furthermore, it will also be expected that you can take on responsibilities within the project, have the ability to take own initiatives and, when needed, work independently. At the same time, being a successful researcher also involves working with others as well as disseminating the results within existing and new networks, both within academia but also to industry and society. Therefore, networking skills, team work skills and quality assurance are important.

The position requires sound verbal and written communication skills in English. If Swedish is not your native language, Chalmers offers Swedish courses.