Battery waste in, clean biogas out: if you like the idea of turning used alkaline batteries into high‑performance pellets that clean up gas streams, this role will feel like a playground rather than a job. You will be the person who makes sure that what works in a beaker keeps working in a reactor, a pilot plant and finally in the real world of biogas plants.
About the role
Klinloop is developing a proprietary sorbent material, produced from specific alkaline battery residues through a hydrometallurgical route, to remove hydrogen sulfide from biogas. You will own the journey from lab recipe to robust, scalable production, working hand‑in‑hand with the CTO and a future COO in a small, science‑driven team.
Right now, the process runs at lab scale and a pilot plant is being set up. Your mission is to stabilise and scale that process, create solid operating and quality practices, and help transform a promising material into a reliable industrial product that customers can trust.
What you will do
- Lead day‑to‑day production of material batches, from lab reactors to the pilot plant.
- Standardise the current hydrometallurgical process (leaching, precipitation, filtration) to reduce variability between batches and document clear operating procedures.
- Design and implement a quality control protocol, defining control points, tests and acceptance criteria to ensure batch‑to‑batch reproducibility.
- Drive the transition from powder to pellets: complete the pellet development work, optimise pellet properties (mechanical strength, structural stability, porosity) and verify that performance matches powder behaviour.
- Test and tune pellets so that they work reliably under real operating conditions, including biogas flow and pressure‑drop constraints.
- Manage operational basics: contact suppliers, request quotes and organise purchasing of raw materials, consumables and equipment.
- Carry out technology scouting and benchmarking versus alternative materials (for example activated carbons), maintaining an up‑to‑date database and arranging comparative testing where needed.
- Support the CTO with technical documentation: data generation for patent filings, internal reports, conference material and technical sections of grant applications or justifications.
- Contribute input and data needed by external consultancies involved in public funding applications (for example Neotec‑type grants).
You will report directly into the future COO and work very closely with the CTO, so your work will be visible and central to how the product evolves.
What you bring
- Degree in Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering or a closely related field.
- Hands‑on experience with wet‑chemistry or hydrometallurgical processes (reactors, leaching/precipitation/filtration, slurry handling) in a lab or pilot‑plant environment.
- Solid understanding of process scale‑up and of how to translate lab protocols into stable, repeatable operating conditions at larger scale.
- Experience developing or handling granular or pelletised materials, ideally with attention to porosity, mechanical strength and pressure‑drop behaviour in packed beds.
- A structured, methodical mindset for designing experiments, analysing variability and embedding quality control into daily operations.
- Comfortable working in a small team with high autonomy, switching between “hands‑dirty in the lab” and “heads‑down at the laptop” for documentation or supplier work.
- Clear communication in English; Spanish is a plus but not essential.
If you have previously worked on sorbents, catalysts, battery recycling, gas purification or similar materials‑for‑environment applications, you will feel at home here.
Why this could be a great move
- Direct environmental impact: your work helps upcycle hazardous battery waste into a product that cleans biogas and reduces emissions.
- End‑to‑end ownership: you will see the full lifecycle from lab concept to pilot‑scale batches going to customers, rather than owning only a small piece of a big plant.
- Close to the IP: Klinloop has a patent process underway covering the use of this family of materials for hydrogen sulfide capture, and you will generate data that feeds into that knowledge base.
- Growth alongside the company: as the COO joins and the team grows, there will be ample room to shape processes, tools and potentially your own future team.
How to apply
If you want to turn chemistry into cleaner energy and like the idea of building a product as much as running the experiments behind it, we would love to hear from you.
Apply via the apply button, and if you would like to discuss any aspect of the role before or after applying, call our Recruiting Manager.