9.2. Senior R&D Chemist

Phoenix Tailings•Woburn, MA

45d

About The Position

Phoenix Tailings is a rapidly growing clean mining and metals production startup dedicated to sustainable and economic critical metals production. Our mission is to be the world’s first fully clean mining and metals production company—unlocking the materials required for aerospace, defense, and advanced manufacturing while eliminating waste and emissions from mining. You’ll be joining a team building the foundational infrastructure for the modern world, developing entirely new ways to produce rare earth and critical metals domestically, cleanly, and at scale. Phoenix Tailings is looking for a Senior R&D Chemist to develop and optimize hydrometallurgical and extraction processes that improve the recovery, separation, and purification of critical metals. This role is for a hands-on chemist who can design experiments, interpret complex chemical systems, and turn lab-scale results into process improvements that strengthen Phoenix Tailings’ clean metals production platform. You will help build the chemistry that makes critical metals more accessible, sustainable, and ready to power the technologies of today and tomorrow.

Requirements

PhD in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Materials Science, Hydrometallurgy, or a related field.
2–3+ years of experience in hydrometallurgy, solvent extraction, separations chemistry, critical metals recovery, rare earth processing, extractive metallurgy, or related applied chemical R&D.
Hands-on experience designing and running leaching, extraction, precipitation, crystallization, ion exchange, or purification experiments.
Strong understanding of aqueous chemistry, metal speciation, pH control, redox chemistry, complexation, phase behavior, and separation selectivity.
Experience analyzing process samples and interpreting chemical data to improve recovery, purity, reagent efficiency, and process stability.
Familiarity with analytical techniques such as ICP-OES/MS, XRF, XRD, IC, HPLC, UV-Vis, titration, or related characterization tools.

Responsibilities

Design and execute hydrometallurgical experiments focused on leaching, extraction, separation, purification, and recovery of critical metals and rare earth elements.
Develop and optimize solvent extraction, precipitation, crystallization, ion exchange, and related separation processes for complex feedstocks and process streams.
Evaluate the effects of pH, temperature, reagent concentration, residence time, redox conditions, phase ratios, and impurity profiles on metals recovery and selectivity.
Analyze aqueous, organic, solid, and intermediate process samples to understand extraction efficiency, metal loading, impurity behavior, and product quality.
Build process-performance relationships that connect chemistry, operating conditions, recovery, purity, reagent use, and scalability.
Identify chemical failure modes, side reactions, losses, and impurity pathways, then develop practical solutions to improve process reliability and efficiency.
Support the translation of bench-scale chemistry into larger experimental systems that advance Phoenix Tailings’ clean metals production technology.
Prepare clear experimental plans, technical reports, data summaries, and recommendations that guide R&D priorities and process development decisions.