Every year we host several national and international master students and a smaller selection of bachelor students and interns for projects that relate to our activities in fundamental and applied research. We support your stay in St. Gallen with an allowance and housing. The ideal length of a project work is around 6 months. Our open and international research environment as well as our good contacts to industry and ETH Zürich are assets, highly esteemed by students. We have many years of experience in hosting Master projects from many different countries and a very intercultural open spirit.

You can always send an unsolicited application with a CV and letter of interest to (manfred.heuberger-at-empa.ch), or, more specifically contact the responsible person as listed for the currently open project topics following below.

Manfred Heuberger

 

Currently open project topics:

Are you a motivated master student and looking for opportunities to challenge and strengthen skills in Polymer, organic and Material chemistry? Are you eager to do a master-project, while gaining valuable experience in a research project for industrial needs? The following projects are offered on immediate basis:

 

• Project: Synthesis of polyethylene with controlled microstructure from α-diimine Ni complexes

Description

In this Master Thesis, your work will be mainly concentrated on the development of novel and functionalized α-diimine Ni complexes to catalyze ethylene polymerization. Through careful design involving systematic variation of ligands of the α-diimine Ni complexes, you will be able to tune their catalytic behavior and the final poly-mer property. The catalyzed polymerization will be run and optimized under different reaction conditions, including the cocatalyst molar ratio, temperature, pressure, and time. High temperature GPC, NMR, and DSC will be used to evaluate the exact property of the final polymers, such as the molecular weight, melting point and branching density. Hence, you will work collaboratively with other team members to learn and discover the method to synthesize the new α-diimine ligands/ complexes, and run ethylene polymerization.

Your profile

You would be the right candidate if you are good at/ interested in molecular design, polymers synthesis, and ma-terial characterization. Preferably, you:

- are currently a master student in Organic Chemistry / Polymer Chemistry / Chemical Engineering/ Catalytic Chemistry or such related field;

- are willing to learn new knowledge and experimental skills;

- are good at speaking English, communication skills, and able to work effectively and independently un-der certain help and instructions.

 

For further details please contact 

 

 

• Project: Development of recyclable flame-retardant thermosets and the following coating and composite applications

In this Master Thesis, you will work on the development of novel recyclable flame-retardant thermosets and the following coating and composite applications. Through innovative methods, we will introduce phosphorous-based dynamic covalent bonds into the thermoset network and develop suitable methods for thermomechanical and chemical recycling. For this purpose, you will work with other team members to discover synthetic ways to obtain novel thermoset and later on study the fire safe and recycling properties. The members of chemistry additives in Advanced Fiber Lab will supervise the master student.

Your profile

You are the right person for this position if you are enthusiastic about plastic recycling and sustainability. Preferably, you:

• currently a Master Student with a specialization in Organic / polymer chemistry / Material Sciences / Composite material or in a related field;
• have good organizational, prioritization, and communication skills and are able to work effectively and independently within a collaborative environment.

for further details please contact 

 

• Project: Development of unsaturated polyester resin formulations with flame retardant properties for compositesSupervisor: Dr. Arvindh Sekar, Dr. Sabyasachi Gaan

In this Master Thesis, the candidate will work with us in collaboration with an external resin manufacturing company for their composite requirements. Currently at Empa, we are building up a library of flame retardant molecules with terminal acids and alcohol moieties, and we expect the help of the student to incorporate our flame retardants into resin formulations. Primarily, the student would work in an organic synthesis laboratory, performing polymerization/polycondensation reactions to obtain the oligomeric resins. He/She will have access to multiple characterization tools like GPC, NMR, elemental analyses and if shown sufficient progress, can also proceed to use these resins and cure them in molds with additives to obtain films which can be subject to other thermo-mechanical analyses.

 

Your profile

You are the perfect fit for this position if you:

• are currently a Master Student with experience working in an Organic / polymer chemistry / Material Sciences / Composite material lab setting.
• are willing to learn new chemistry/ material science lab skills, as this is a relatively interdisciplinary field.
• are able to think independently, and communicate well with others in the group/your supervisor.
• wish to experience what an industrial project expects from and offers to you.

for further details please contact 

 

• Project: Synthesis of polyethylene with controlled microstructure from α-diimine Ni complexes Description

In this Master Thesis, your work will be mainly concentrated on the development of novel and functionalized α-diimine Ni complexes to catalyze ethylene polymerization. Through careful design involving systematic varia-tion of ligands of the α-diimine Ni complexes, you will be able to tune their catalytic behavior and the final poly-mer property. The catalyzed polymerization will be run and optimized under different reaction conditions, in-cluding the cocatalyst molar ratio, temperature, pressure, and time. High temperature GPC, NMR, and DSC will be used to evaluate the exact property of the final polymers, such as the molecular weight, melting point and branching density. Hence, you will work collaboratively with other team members to learn and discover the method to synthesize the new α-diimine ligands/ complexes, and run ethylene polymerization.

Your profile
You would be the right candidate if you are good at/ interested in molecular design, polymers synthesis, and ma-terial characterization. Preferably, you:
- are currently a master student in Organic Chemistry / Polymer Chemistry / Chemical Engineering/ Cat-alytic Chemistry or such related field;
- are willing to learn new knowledge and experimental skills;
- are good at speaking English, communication skills, and able to work effectively and independently un-der certain help and instructions.

For more details please contact 

 

• Melt-spun biopolyester fibers for biomedical and sustainable applications     

This master project or internship will focus on biocompatible liquid-filled biopolyester fibers for drug-delivery applications. Liquid filled fibers with different processing parameters and thus different diameters and core/sheath ratios will be produced using a continuous melt-spinning technique. Liquids of varying viscosities and eventually also a variety of drug or drug-simulating molecules are to be tested. Drug-release trials will be performed on the produced fibers. Furthermore, liquid filled fibers, that do not contain drug molecules, will be immersed in reservoirs containing, e.g. fluorescein, in order to study the diffusion behavior of such molecules into the liquid core. The latter will be tested in order to study if impregnation with drug molecules would also work. Finally, methods have to be developed to render the fibers responsive to different external triggers (e.g. mechanical, thermal, pH). A second part of the internship may focus on studying the structure of sustainable biopolyester monofilaments for other types of applications. The filaments will be studied using x-ray diffraction, Raman and infrared spectroscopy to identify how processing parameters affect the fiber structures. Special attention will be paid to mesophases and their correlation to mechanical properties of the fibers. Polarized Raman mapping is to be used in order to study the microstructure (mesophases, crystallinity, molecular alignment) of these filaments.

This work will be conducted at the EMPA institute (St. Gallen) in Switzerland under the supervision of E. Perret in the group of R. Hufenus.

Duration: Minimum 4 months.

Starting date: To be discussed.

Contact: Dr. Edith Perret 

 

• The Role of Ions in Plasma Polymer Deposition

Plasma deposition involves ionic and neutral radicals as film-forming species. This Master project or Internship (4-6 months) investigates their role in order to obtain functional plasma polymer films for adhesion promotion and biomaterials. You will work in one of the worldwide leading teams in this field using plasma reactors, plasma diagnostics and surface characterization methods. As your background materials science, engineering, chemistry, physics or similar is beneficial.

For details, please contact: