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Process RD&D Manager

11 days ago

Full time role

Remote · Denver, CO, US... more

About Travertine

Travertine is a Climate Tech start-up based in Boulder, CO, that is rapidly scaling a technology for low-waste, carbon-negative production of critical elements, focusing on phosphoric acid production for our go-to-market. Our electrochemical process converts phosphate rock into phosphoric acid for EV batteries and fertilizers, as well as cementitious materials using carbon dioxide captured from the air. Travertine was spun out of UC Berkeley in 2022 to scale this process to gigatons of permanent CDR while massively reducing industrial waste.

Since its founding, Travertine has raised over $25M in capital, including over $5M in US Federal and State government grants. As one of the first companies to receive pre-purchases of CDR from the new Stripe-led $1B Frontier fund, and as founding members of the Carbon Removal Alliance, we are committed to industrial decarbonization at scale. We were named C&EN 10 startups to watch in 2022, a Bloomberg NEF Pioneer in 2023, and RMI Third Derivative 1st Gigaton Captured program participants in 2024. Today we are focused on scaling up commercial deployments of our technology, starting with a Demonstration Plant to be commissioned in mid-2025. We believe in developing practical approaches to solving the climate crisis.

The Role

The Process RD&D Manager will report to the Director of Process Engineering and will manage and oversee RD&D projects. We have kicked off the engineering and construction of a Demonstration Plant to be deployed at a customer site, and you will be supporting the RD&D related to this and future systems. You will be responsible for managing a portfolio of RD&D projects, overseeing experimental design, analysis, and piloting to develop and scale-up Travertine’s technology. The successful candidate will have proven abilities to manage pilot process design, analyze experimental data, and translate experimental results into scalable processes. If you are a Process Engineer and want to work on the cutting edge of Climate Tech to help remove carbon from the atmosphere AND sustainably extract the elements critical for decarbonization, this is your opportunity.

Key Responsibilities

Manage and oversee RD&D projects.
Translate RD&D experimentation into chemical process design.
Oversee development of experimental plans and review analytical work products from benchtop and pilot experiments.
Support the design and construction of laboratory and pilot test equipment.
Translate benchtop RD&D into inputs for heat and mass balance models with our process simulation engineers.
Review and improve PFDs and Equipment Lists.
Troubleshoot performance issues in lab and pilot experiments.
Train personnel as necessary in laboratory procedures and data analysis.
Maintain a safe, clean, productive laboratory environment.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in engineering (chemical, materials, metallurgical) or equivalent experience.
5+ years of applied chemical process design experience.
Proven skills in chemical experiment design, data acquisition and validation, mass balance development, and translation of laboratory results to process design.
Experience in chemical and physical analytical techniques (wet chemistry, spectroscopy, mineralogical characterization).
Experience reading and writing process flow diagrams (PFDs) and developing mass and energy balance models (MEBs).

Optional Qualifications

Experience interfacing with contractors to integrate R&D results into engineering designs.
Experience in phosphate fertilizer production is a desired optional qualification.
Experience in a start-up or RD&D environment is desired.
Process simulation expertise
Translation of process design from pilot to commercial scale.
Experience in the following industries are desired: phosphate fertilizer production, chlor-alkali, electrolysis, and/or hydrometallurgy.