The Company
Syntra Refining Corp is a critical-minerals refining company based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. We convert waste streams, recycled materials and mineral intermediates into high-purity critical mineral products through a continuous, closed-loop hydrometallurgical circuit that operates without smelting or organic solvent extraction, at zero liquid discharge.
We operate a pilot refining circuit and analytical laboratory in Dartmouth, and we are installing and commissioning a 1,000 tonne-per-year demonstration plant in the Halifax area. This is a first-of-a-kind operation.
The Position
Syntra Refining Corp. is seeking an experienced Senior Process Developer/Hydrometallurgist to direct the scale-up of our pilot operations to our demonstration-scale facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, this position combines technical excellence in chemical/process engineering and inorganic chemistry with end-to-end technical project management.
Key Responsibilities
1. Project Management & Delivery
- Roadmap Execution: Translate strategic milestones into an actionable scale-up plan with clearly defined scope, deliverables, schedules, and budgets.
- Campaign Management: Plan and execute experimental campaigns, pilot runs, and engineering studies using structured project management frameworks (stage-gate reviews, sprints, risk registers).
- Cross-Functional Leadership: Align chemists, process/mechanical engineers, automation specialists, and laboratory teams around core project priorities.
- Vendor & Partner Oversight: Scope and manage external engagements with engineering consultants, analytical testing labs, equipment vendors, and research institutions.
- Stakeholder Reporting: Deliver concise progress reports, technical evaluations, and go/no-go recommendations to executive leadership, partners, and investors.
2. Process Modelling & Simulation
- Process Modeling: Develop and maintain steady-state and dynamic process models, mass and energy balances, thermodynamic models, and chemical speciation flowsheets.
- Optimization & Simulation: Utilize simulations to evaluate design alternatives, optimize reagent consumption and energy efficiency, maximize recovery, and mitigate operational bottlenecks.
- Model Calibration & Digital Twin Integration: Validate predictive models using empirical lab and pilot data, supporting integration into process control systems and digital twin architecture.
- Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA): Provide process engineering data (yields, utility requirements, equipment sizing) to inform CAPEX and OPEX evaluations.
3. Process Chemistry & Metallurgy
- Unit Operations Optimization: Refine leaching, purification, solvent extraction (SX), ion exchange (IX), precipitation, and crystallization steps for demonstration-scale deployment.
- Inorganic & Aqueous Chemistry: Apply fundamental principles of aqueous chemistry (solubility, speciation, pH/Eh control, kinetics) to solve complex separation challenges.
- Product Purity & Quality Control: Drive lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and copper output toward battery-grade specifications while strictly managing trace impurities.
- Feedstock Flexibility: Characterize diverse feedstocks and adapt processing flowsheets to accommodate variable input compositions while maintaining zero liquid discharge (ZLD).
4. Scale-Up to Demonstration
- Scale-Up Strategy: Leverage pilot data to define design parameters, operating envelopes, and equipment specifications for the demonstration plant; identify and resolve scale-up risks (fluid dynamics, mass/heat transfer, solid-liquid separation).
- Pilot Plant Operations: Collaborate with operations and automation teams to continuous improve pilot plant campaigns and test design iterations prior to commercial scale-up.
- Documentation & Tech Transfer: Author comprehensive process engineering packages, including Process Flow Diagrams (PFDs), Process Descriptions, Design Basis Documents, SOPs, and technology transfer packages.
- Safety & Compliance: Active participation in HAZOP reviews and environmental/safety compliance assessments to ensure robust facility design.
5. Technical Leadership
- Mentorship: Guide and develop junior engineers and chemists, driving best practices in experimental design, analytical rigor, and technical reporting.
- Interdisciplinary Coordination: Serve as the primary technical bridge between R&D, process chemistry, and plant design teams.
- IP Protection: Support intellectual property development and patent filings by maintaining rigorous technical records of innovative processes.
Qualifications
Required
- Education: Bachelor's degree or higher in Chemical Engineering, Process Engineering, Chemistry, Metallurgical Engineering or a related field. A Master's or PhD is an asset.
- Experience: 7+ years in process development, scale-up, chemical processing, or hydrometallurgy, including a minimum of 3 years leading technical teams or complex projects.
- Project Management: Demonstrated track record of successfully managing multidisciplinary engineering projects on schedule and within budget.
- Modeling & Simulation: Proficiency with commercial process simulation packages (e.g., METSIM, HSC Chemistry, Aspen Plus, SysCAD, OLI, or MATLAB/Python modeling).
- Chemistry: Strong command of inorganic and aqueous chemistry as it applies to separation and purification.
- Metallurgy: Working knowledge of extractive metallurgy, especially hydrometallurgy (leaching, solvent extraction, ion exchange, precipitation, crystallization).
Assets
- Battery minerals: Experience with lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese or copper refining, battery recycling or black mass processing.
- Scale-up: Hands-on experience taking a process from pilot to demonstration or commercial scale.
- Credentials: PMP or equivalent project management certification; P.Eng. (or eligibility with Engineers Nova Scotia) or P.Chem.
- Plant experience: Familiarity with PFDs and P&IDs, HAZOP, process control, and pilot or demonstration plant operations.
- Analytics: Experience with analytical methods used for high-purity products (e.g., ICP-OES/MS, IC, XRD).
To Apply
Applications should include a curriculum vitae and a concise project summary (1 page maximum) detailing a scale-up or process development project you led. Please outline the core objective, your role, team scope, schedule/budget execution, and final outcomes.
Employment is conditional on execution of our confidentiality and assignment-of-inventions agreement.
Syntra Refining Corp is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates, and we especially encourage applications from members of equity-deserving groups, including women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minorities.
