Artificial intelligence (AI) promises great advances for the modeling and operation of chemical industrial processes. We are seeking a highly motivated PhD to work on AI methods and applications for digital twins of chemical industrial processes.

In this PhD project, you will develop novel tools for the operation of chemical processes with AI. The project is the beginning of a long-term collaboration with industrial partners that provide operational data and process information. Also, you will get access to a pilot plant that will facilitate the development of AI methods and new inline sensor development. You will use the operational data and process topology information to develop a digital twin for optimal operation. The process of interest is a spray drying process. Spray drying is one of the most applied methods in the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries to continuously transform liquid-solid mixtures (slurries) into solid particles.

In the project, you will combine chemical engineering knowledge with data-driven approaches in an effective way. The methods that you will develop and apply can potentially include hybrid modeling, graph neural networks (GNNs), physics-informed neural networks (PINNs), recurrent neural networks (e.g., LSTMs), semantic technologies, and much more. We are happy to provide you with more technical details about our vision in a personal interview. We also expect you to develop new or used already available sensors, to test, to improve to facilitate the data collection, using a pilot spray drier.

We support you to become a future leader in AI in chemical engineering. This project will prepare you for a future career in academia and industry. You will be responsible for the full project. This includes scientific research (e.g., method development and application) as well as project organization and collaboration with the industry. You will supervise a team of graduate students. Theirs, but also your work will be devided over practical as well as computational work at the university as well as at the industrial partner. Moreover, you will be involved in teaching activities (e.g., a course on AI in chemical engineering) and funding acquisition. We facilitate collaborations and provide many opportunities to connect to the academic and industry communities. Finally, your work will contribute to the transition to sustainable chemical systems and you will have the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary environment and interact with world-class collaborators.

We are looking for candidates that meet the following criteria:

• Hold a MSc degree in STEM (preferably in Chemical Engineering or computer science)
• Prior expertise in machine learning and data models
• Excellent programming skills in Python are essential. Knowledge of other programming languages is desired.
• Experience with relevant Python libraries (TensorFlow/PyTorch, the python scientific stack) is necessary
• Familiarity with version control, for example, git
• Prior knowledge of chemical process modeling
• Not be afraid to do practical work in labs or pilot plant
• Ability to work in a team and mentor other students
• Ability to communicate scientific results
• Excellent oral and written English with good presentation skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with continuous integration and testing pipelines.
• Experience with knowledge graphs and semantic web technologies
• Experience in sensor development

Doing a PhD at TU Delft requires English proficiency at a certain level to ensure that the candidate is able to communicate and interact well, participate in English-taught Doctoral Education courses, and write scientific articles and a final thesis. For more details please check the Graduate Schools Admission Requirements.

Fixed-term contract: 4 years (1,5 year initial + 2,5 year after go/no-go evaluation).

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1,5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months. Followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2,5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, increasing from € 2541 per month in the first year to € 3247 in the fourth year. As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills.

The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance and sport memberships, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged. For international applicants we offer the Coming to Delft Service and Partner Career Advice to assist you with your relocation.

Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Applied Sciences

With more than 1,100 employees, including 150 pioneering principal investigators, as well as a population of about 3,600 passionate students, the Faculty of Applied Sciences is an inspiring scientific ecosystem. Focusing on key enabling technologies, such as quantum- and nanotechnology, photonics, biotechnology, synthetic biology and materials for energy storage and conversion, our faculty aims to provide solutions to important problems of the 21st century. To that end, we educate innovative students in broad Bachelor's and specialist Master's programmes with a strong research component. Our scientists conduct ground-breaking fundamental and applied research in the fields of Life and Health Science & Technology, Nanoscience, Chemical Engineering, Radiation Science & Technology, and Engineering Physics. We are also training the next generation of high school teachers.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Applied Sciences.