Gas Separations and Pyrometallurgical Scale-Up Engineer

PHNX Materials•San Leandro, CA

83d•Hybrid

About The Position

PHNX Materials is a solids refinery that turns industrial waste, primarily coal ash and zinc slag, into three product streams: critical metals for semiconductors and defense, cement replacement material for construction, and fertilizer for agriculture. The company was founded by Stanford, Tesla, and national lab alumni, and is backed by prominent investors. PHNX is executing a Department of War-sponsored Phase II scale-up program (GALLANT II) for gallium recovery, moving from pilot to commercial scale over the next two and a half years. This role is critical for the engineering scale-up of the company's downstream gas-phase separations train and the upstream high-temperature reactor. The separations train is responsible for splitting a mixed product vapor into discrete gallium, germanium, and silicon streams, while the reactor operates at high temperatures in corrosive gas service. The company is seeking candidates with experience in refining, petrochemicals, sulfur recovery, specialty gas processing, or extractive metallurgy, as the required unit operations have not been built at commercial scale in the United States for over thirty years. This is a hands-on design role, not an operations or maintenance position, involving pilot testing, design tools, vendor calls, and site commissioning.

Requirements

5+ years of process engineering experience in one or more of the following: gas separations or specialty gas processing; oil and gas refining; petrochemicals; sulfur recovery, amine treating, or other acid-gas processing; pyrometallurgy or extractive metallurgy; or specialty chemicals in corrosive service.
Experience taking at least one condenser train, separations system, or reactor from bench or pilot through fabrication and commissioning.
Strong working knowledge of hot corrosive gas service (e.g., HCl, SO₂, H₂S, NH₃, chlorides, or analogous acid-gas environments), including understanding of dew points, salt deposition, materials of construction, and corrosion mechanisms.
Experience with materials selection for corrosive service, including nickel and high-nickel alloys, refractory linings, quartz and borosilicate, ceramic-lined transport, and sour-service-grade carbon steels.
Strong process modeling skills (mass and energy balances, gas-solid kinetics, condensation and desublimation thermodynamics, multi-component VLE) using tools like Aspen Plus, HSC, or FactSage.
Hands-on experience with analytical methods (ICP-OES/MS, XRD, SEM) for tracking recovery, purity, and impurity partitioning.
Direct communication skills, including the ability to write clearly and push back when necessary.
Willingness to be on-site at the pilot and commercial facilities.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on work on unconventional or solids-bearing feedstocks (coal ash, slag, tailings, ores, heavy residuals, or similar).
Direct experience designing, scaling, or operating condensation, desublimation, or distillation trains and high-temperature reactors.
Working knowledge of process safety and integrity code stack (OSHA PSM, NFPA 55, EPA RMP, API RP 571, API 521, NACE/AMPP standards).
Familiarity with coal ash, slag, or tailings valorization, or with SCM and ASTM C618.
SBIR Phase II or other federal contracting exposure.
Commissioning experience on a greenfield pyrometallurgical, petrochemical, or specialty chemicals facility.
Refinery crude unit, sulfur recovery, or amine treating experience translated to first-of-kind metallurgical scale-up.

Responsibilities

Design and commission the downstream gas-phase separations train that splits a mixed product vapor into discrete gallium, germanium, and silicon streams via staged condensation, desublimation, and scrubbing.
Own the thermal profile, vessel internals, materials of construction, sequencing logic, and close-cut separations for the separations train.
Scale up the current single-zone pilot reactor to a multi-zone commercial system, owning residence time, gas-solid contacting, freeboard, refractory and alloy selection, and heat integration.
Specify and procure the long-lead reactor.
Manage the hot corrosive gas stream end to end, including reactor offtake, transport lines, pressure balance, vent and scrub systems, and the recycle loop.
Develop mass and energy balances, P&IDs, and equipment specifications for the full refinery.
Support AACE Class 3 cost estimation for the commercial design phase.
Conduct bench and pilot experiments to address engineering uncertainties blocking scale-up, such as separation efficiency, fouling, material compatibility, and dust carryover.
Author process safety and commissioning outputs, including interlocks, ventilation logic, leak detection, scrubbing systems, SOPs, and commissioning protocols.