SENIOR PHYSICAL CHEMIST

ABOUT SEABORG

Seaborg Technologies is a start-up on the forefront of advanced and innovative nuclear reactor technology working to provide abundant, affordable and sustainable energy to the world. We have grown to become the leading molten salt reactor start-up outside of North America with an international team of 20 employees from four continents. We are actively developing the design for our Compact Molten Salt Reactor, alongside licensing and experimental validation activities of key safety and performance claims, and are currently planning a multi-million salt lab to accelerate these efforts. We are engaged with multiple stakeholders in the growing advanced reactor supply chain, primarily in East Asia.

Our success is entirely due to our brilliant and passionate team of employees and experienced advisers - a team we are currently in the process of expanding with more world-class talent determined to create positive change in the world.

THE ROLE

We are hiring a physical chemist to play an instrumental role in establishing and growing our laboratory team. The successful candidate will hold a senior position in Seaborg’s chemistry group, and will be performing both theoretical and experimental investigations of the thermophysical properties of molten salts and mixtures containing fission products at high temperatures. Key words include physical and computational chemistry, thermodynamics, thermophysical properties, radiochemistry, chemical speciation, and corrosion chemistry. As a member of the reactor research and development team, the position will include collaboration with the reactor physics and engineering groups in Seaborg to ensure due consideration of important physical phenomena and safety considerations across all relevant disciplines. Some international travelling should be expected.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Seaborg employees must be able to act proactively and independently to perform a wide variety of functions that do not always correlate with experience or expertise (such as writing job advertisements). That being said, the advertised position is expected to include at least some of the following responsibilities and tasks:

• Plan, organise and execute experimental campaigns to establish and validate thermophysical properties of molten salts and fission products;
  
  
• Plan, organise and execute theoretical and computational work to establish properties of molten salts and fission products, and perform validation of said computations;
  
  
• Develop and design equipment for measuring chemical properties;
  
  
• Aid analysis of corrosion testing through thermodynamic, kinetic, diffusion and/or molecular dynamics calculations and modelling;
  
  
• Prepare samples of chemicals for testing;
  
  
• Investigate speciation of salt components, including transuranics and fission products, using various state-of-the-art instrumentation techniques such as spectroscopy;
  
  
• Analyse and report findings to steer design and development activities;
  
  
• Support reactor physics and engineering teams by providing experimental and theoretical data on thermophysical properties and corrosion, and its precision;
  
  
• Support planning of experimental and computational R&D activities to progress reactor design, including scheduling, costing and establishing decision criteria;
  
  
• Support the development of robust instrumentation and control systems for monitoring and controlling the chemical and physical properties of molten salts and meet safeguards requirements;
  
  
• Support IP development and acquisition activities;
  
  
• Pursue compliance with regulatory requirements, including working to establish suitable standards and codes for the classification of salt-bearing systems, structures and components;
  
  
• Interact with a diverse set of partners and stakeholders from around the world;
  
  
• Train and supervise new employees and interns from around the world;
  
  
• Support the identification and alleviation of operational and project development risks.
  
  

REQUIREMENTS

• Desire to positively change the world by shaping the energy landscape of tomorrow;
  
  
• Demonstrated ability to creatively and diligently approach and solve challenging tasks within time and budgetary constraints;
  
  
• MSc or higher in chemistry, applied physics, chemical engineering, or similar;
  
  
• PhD preferred;
  
  
• Considerable experience working with molten salt or high temperature fluid experimentation and/or computational modelling, preferably both, in an R&D environment;
  
  
• Prior experience with thermodynamic, kinetic, diffusion and/or molecular dynamics calculations of ionic liquids to compute thermophysical and/or corrosion properties;
  
  
• Team player with effective communication and good interpersonal skills, including fluency in English;
  
  
• Experience from nuclear industry preferred;
  
  
• Experience planning, scheduling and costing project work is an advantage;
  
  
• Experience developing, procuring and installing laboratory equipment is an advantage;
  
  
• Ability to travel by plane and communicate outside of normal working hours when necessary.
  
  

At Seaborg we strongly value the combination of relevant experience, talent and personality traits that align with our team and overarching vision for a sustainable future. We therefore encourage applications from diverse backgrounds and are prepared to mould the job description to accommodate well-aligned candidates.

OUR OFFER

While our team is still small, our ambitions are not. Becoming a part of Seaborg presents a unique possibility to importantly impact and define the global energy landscape of tomorrow. We know that new ideas and influences are key to challenge the status quo and strive for continuous improvement, and so new hires can expect to importantly contribute to shaping both the technology and the future of the company.

We want to play an active role in enabling the personal and professional development of all employees so that they can evolve and grow to take on changing tasks and responsibilities. To give room for this development, we practice high work flexibility in an informal, merit-based environment without strict hierarchies. With time, we expect every employee to become an invaluable part of Seaborg and our success, and we underpin this expectation by offering all new employees stock options in the company.

We are based in Denmark, a country known for its high quality of life and extensive social welfare system. That means free health care and education, generous vacation arrangements, progressive maternity and paternity leave provisions, etc. More on this at lifeindenmark.borger.dk.

Our office is situated centrally in Copenhagen - a young and vibrant European capital on the Øresund coast with a thriving expat community and world-leading bicycle infrastructure.

Kilde: Jobnet.dk