Job Title:            Experimental Chemist

Location:            BP Energy Innovation Laboratory, Dalian, China

Job Type:           Contractor

Line Contact:            EIL Director

Posted Date:             March 21, 2013

Expiry Date:              May 3, 2013

 

Role

BP has developed an exceptional relationship with the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) over the past 10 years.  In 2011, BP opened the Energy Innovation Laboratory (EIL) on the DICP campus which aims to carry out fundamental underpinning science, advanced materials development and chemical process research in the areas of energy and chemicals.  BP established its first research team in China to both collaborate with the DICP and support BP’s business activities globally.  To date this research has included work in the following fields:

·         Sugar Chemistry

·         Syngas Chemistry

·         Advanced Materials

·         Computational Fluid Dynamics

 

The objective of the EIL is for DICP and BP staff to work together to build a research capability to discover and develop exciting new technologies which have the potential to materially impact BP’s businesses. 

 

This role is a 1-2 year assignment to assist the EIL in running experiments which complement the work we sponsor at the DICP.  The outcome of this assignment would be to gain experience working for one of the top oil companies in the world while maintaining close ties with the DICP.  There will be opportunities to learn about BP’s multiple businesses and how a Western company operates.  The four chemists currently employed at the EIL all graduated or worked at the DICP.

Aside from working on BP projects, the new joiner would assist us with specific projects that the DICP is currently carrying out including:

·         Hydrogenating Vegetable Oils - Professor Zhijian Tian’s group is focusing on a developing a multifunctional catalyst which not only converts the lipids into diesel range molecules, but minimizes the hydrogen consumption by minimizing how much oxygen is removed through hydrodeoxygenation.

·         Converting syngas to gasoline - Professor Qingjie Ge’s team at the DICP is developing and screening new catalyst systems to modify the products derived from the conversion of syngas via methanol and/or DME to iso-paraffinic gasoline or chemical feedstocks.

·         Redox couples - Professor Qingjie Ge’s team working on a project to understand how the relative ratio of Cu⁺/Cu⁰ in a redox couple can be tuned by introducing electron donors or acceptors on a copper catalyst.

Our laboratory has 5 pilot plants including a Yashentech PRS-16TC (16 channel high throughput rig), Strata 4 channel advanced micro-reactor and three Meryer’s fix-bed and batch reactors.  Part of the role will assist the BP team in commissioning the Meryer rigs and running experiments on them.  In addition to the pilot plants, our lab has the capability to both develop zeolite catalysts and characterize new and spent catalyst in our new Autosorb@iQ-Chemi (Quantachrome) chemisorption.

 

Key Accountabilities

·         Safety is our top priority in the lab.  The candidate will follow BP’s safety practices while performing routine laboratory activities, especially pilot plant operations and maintenance.

·         Assist BP in the commissioning of one or more pilot plants. 

·         Collaborate with both the BP and DICP team. Support one or more of the projects BP is sponsoring at the DICP.  Plan and deliver experiments to compliment the DICP work using BP’s pilot plants and analytical capability. 

·         Help to develop  and execute research programs.

·         Record results / ideas, perform data analysis and present the findings in a written report while protecting existing and new confidential material.

·         Ensure constant communication with all EIL staff to ensure prompt intellectual property protection.

 

Desirable Criteria

·         One to two years of relevant work experience in R&D research fields.

·         Experience in the synthesis, characterisation and testing of catalysts.

·         Experience in GC operations and familiar with routine catalyst characterization methodologies like physisorption and chemisorption.

·         Demonstrated ability to carry out experimental programmes

·         Experience in performing patent and/or literature searches.

 

Education:

·         Master or above who majored in chemistry, chemical engineering or equivalent discipline

 

Languages Needed:

·         English (spoken and written) - preferred

 

How to apply:

Interested candidates should email their CV (resume) and cover letter to:

 

Sky Wang

sky.wang@se1.bp.com

411-3972-8901