NRL Organic Synthesis in the Areas of Sorbents, Sensing Materials, and Infrared Taggants
NRL seeks a postdoctoral organic chemist to synthesize novel materials for detecting and capturing hazardous chemicals using IR taggants, sorbents, and sensors.
This grant is no longer accepting proposals
NRC Research Associateship Programs has archived this opportunity.
Funder: NRC Research Associateship Programs
Due Dates: May 1, 2025 (Next deadline)
Funding Amounts: Stipend approximately $99,200 per year plus $3,000 travel allowance; relocation assistance available. Typical fellowship duration 2-3 years.
Summary: Postdoctoral fellowship for an organic synthetic chemist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to develop novel sorbents, sensing materials, and IR taggants for detecting and protecting against hazardous chemicals.
Key Information: Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents; requires Ph.D. earned within last 5 years; multi-step small molecule synthesis experience preferred; strong hydrogen-bonding molecular design focus.
Description
This postdoctoral fellowship opportunity at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC, seeks an organic synthetic chemist to design and synthesize novel materials aimed at detecting and protecting against hazardous chemicals. The research focuses on understanding molecular interactions, particularly how infrared (IR) light interacts with molecules, and leveraging these interactions to develop sorbents, sensing materials, and IR taggants.
Key research areas include:
- Designing sorbent materials emphasizing strong hydrogen-bond (HB) structural features to complement the HB basicities of hazardous chemicals.
- Developing materials that exhibit significant IR spectral changes upon binding hazardous chemicals, enabling chemical detection.
- Application of sorbents in analytical/detection roles such as pre-concentrators (collection), gas chromatography (GC) stationary phases (separation), and transduction (sensing).
- Creating adsorbent materials for pre-concentrator and protection applications, including gas mask filters.
- Grafting small molecule sorbents onto rigid inorganic scaffolds to enhance molecular binding and mass transfer properties.
- Collaborating with analytical and physical science laboratories for characterization and testing of new materials and coated devices.
- Contributing to the development of microfabricated gas analyzer devices for applied sensing technologies.
The fellowship provides access to well-equipped synthesis and analytical laboratories, including glove boxes, automated flash chromatography, microwave reactors, GCMS, FTIR, NMR, MALDI, UV-Vis, and various microscopy systems.
