PhD candidates Industrial Ecology | H2020 project

“Sustainable Recovery, Reprocessing and Reuse of Rare-Earth Magnets in a Circular Economy” (SUSMAGPRO), 2 positions (1.0 fte)

Key responsibilities

The demand for strong (NdFeB) magnets will increase rapidly in the coming decades as a result of our push toward newer forms of clean energy Magnets are used in wind turbines, electromotors and generators.  These magnets contain critical materials like neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium which are limited in supply while the production is vulnerable for geopolitical conflicts. In order to improve the reuse potential and minimize overall waste, we require a thorough understanding the flows these materials and develop sustainable recovery, reprocessing and reuse of rare-earth magnets.

We are looking for 2 Ph.D. students to join our team at the CML-Industrial Ecology (IE) department to work within the H2020 project “Sustainable Recovery, Reprocessing and Reuse of Rare-Earth Magnets in a Circular Economy” (SUSMAGPRO) starting ultimately per 1 May 2019. These Ph.D. students will interact with various EU partners to analyse the vast amounts of data for the various processes within the recycling chain. Key tasks include:

• Quantify the flows and stocks of rare earth magnets through the EU economy using material flow analysis (MFA);
• Making (ex-ante) LCAs of pilot/lab scale /large scale versions of recycling technologies
• Making a survey the social impact of the technologies;
• Creating a techno-economic assessment of the SUSMAGPRO project
• Multi-criteria analysis of the SUSMAGPRO technologies combining techno-economic, life-cycle and social aspects.

For more information please contact: Dr. René Kleijn, kleijn@cml.leidenuniv.nl

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies/2019/q1/19-137-phd-industrial-ecology