Are you passionate about high-end technological design? Do you want to continue developing your skills with a combination of education and work? 
 
Our Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) programme Energy & Process Technology (EPT) offers you a 2-year position combining post-MSc education and a challenging design project at RubberGreen (www.rubbergreen.eu). The educational programme (~50%), carried out at the University of Twente (UT), will have an in-depth and broadening character with ample attention for professional development. This course programme is tailored to a design project (~50%) to be carried out in co-operation with RubberGreen. RubberGreen is a Belgian company active in rubber recycling and end-products manufacturing for antivibration, shock absorbing and mechanical protection in many different applications like railway infrastructures, construction, industries, etc… RubberGreen is willing to develop circular economy of rubber from tire recycling providing high quality devulcanized recycled rubber for the rubber industry. 

This project aims at designing a recycling process for natural rubber based tire rubber, giving a high quality re-plasticized rubber which can be added to virgin material with the least influence on the properties. 

Your project consists of a processing as well as an application part. Within the first part, you will design the re-plasticization process and evaluate, compares and optimizes at least three basic paths: thermomechanical re-plasticization, physical breakdown, and chemical devulcanization. If promising, you further elaborate a combination of these process. You have to run the re-plasticization experiments on an extruder at the production site of RubberGreen, and analyze the recycled material as such as well as in an elastomer compound in the laboratories of SES/ETE at the UT in terms of re-curability, mechanical as well as dynamic properties. You analyze the most promising recycled materials in terms of crosslink/polymer scission ratio.

You will perform a compounding study for application of the best recycled elastomer in a blend with high-quality virgin compounds. Aspects to be covered in this part are reactivity of the fillers, adjustments of the curing system, and special treatments for further improving the property profile depending on the final application.

The elastomer processing part of this project will be done at the company site in Frameries, Belgium. All analytical work as well as the application study will take place at the University of Twente, Enschede (NL). 

Sustainable Elastomer Systems (SES)

The group of SES within the chair of Elastomer Technology and Engineering (ETE) focuses on high-value recycled elastomers from production or post-consumer waste. The R&D work of ETE covers different areas such as modified polymers, filler and cord reinforcement, vulcanization, and innovative additives. This knowledge forms a basis for the development of new recycling technologies as well for the application of recycled elastomers.

• You hold a MSc degree in Rubber Technology, Polymer Technology, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• You have good knowledge/demonstrated awareness of fundamental aspects of rubber processing, in particular extrusion, and elastomer properties.
• You have experience in processing and compounding elastomers.
• You are aware of analytical techniques for elastomeric materials such as rheology/viscosity measurements, mechanical properties, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and microscopy.
• You have a critical attitude towards assessment of experimental results.
• You can work independently and define follow-up steps based on experimental results.
• You like to present your results to colleagues as well as industrial partners.
• You are willing to travel between the Netherlands (Enschede) and Belgium (Frameries).
• You are keen to learn more about elastomers, professional planning and conduction of projects as well as to further develop your soft skills.
• You are fluent in English and express yourself easily in both, speech and writing. (A TOEFL > 90 or IELTS > 6.5 score is required.) 

If you have any further questions about this vacancy of the PDEng programme in Energy & Process Technology, please contact Wilma Dierkes:

• Email: w.k.dierkes@utwente.nl
• Telephone: +31 53 489 4721

We offer a very challenging position for two years in an inspiring multidisciplinary and international environment. In this time we will provide you with a tailor made post-master design programme that has an educational component (~50%) as well as the project (~50%).

• A salary of € 1.865 gross per month;
• A holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.3%;
• A solid pension scheme;
• Minimum of 29 holidays in case of full-time employment.

On successfully completing the programme, you will receive a certified degree. You will be entitled to use the academic degree PDEng and will be registered as a Technological Designer in the Dutch register kept by the Royal Institution of Engineers in the Netherlands (KIVI).

The University of Twente. We stand for life sciences and technology. High tech and human touch. Education and research that matter. New technology which leads change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university of the Netherlands; divided over five faculties we provide more than fifty educational programmes. We have a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out groundbreaking research.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status. Because of our diversity values we do particularly support women to apply.

The Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET) is one of the five faculties of the University of Twente. ET combines Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Industrial Design Engineering. Our faculty has approximately 1800 bachelor and master students, 400 employees and 150 PhD candidates. The departments of the faculty cooperatively conduct the educational programmes and participate in interdisciplinary research projects, programmes and the research institutes: Mesa+ Institute, TechMed Centra and Digital Society Institute.