About Livent: Livent powers the things that power our lives. From the revolution in electric vehicle batteries and mobile devices to the strong, lightweight alloys and advanced polymers that take innovation further, we harness lithium technology to help the world move forward—cleaner, healthier and more sustainably.

For nearly eight decades, we’ve been harnessing lithium’s potential to change the energy landscape. We are a pioneer in the lithium industry and have a rich history of breakthrough innovations and industry achievements, including partnering with Sony Corporation to develop the first ever Lithium-ion battery for commercial use.

Today, Livent builds on our heritage and is a global leader in the lithium industry with a differentiated product offering, proven track record and sustainability profile. Our customer portfolio includes some of the most dynamic companies in the world, including Tesla, and BMW Group.

Our customers look to us to meet the most demanding technical requirements, drawing upon our strengths in R&D with our advanced engineering capabilities, industry-leading materials science expertise, fully integrated global supply chain, and passion for continuous improvement and excellence.

Together, we work to safely and sustainably convert lithium’s potential into commercial progress, driving not only incremental improvements and also next generation, transformative opportunities.

For customers at the forefront of the once in a generation shift in how the world powers itself – and the fight against climate change – Livent is the lithium technology partner that’s leading the way.

Position Summary: The Senior Research Chemist will be responsible for leading process development projects. This position requires technical leadership and acumen to develop new, efficient processes, implement these processes in a manufacturing environment, solve challenging technical issues related to operations and customer complaints, and process improvements. Hands-on lab experimentation will be required. The person will work on developing new methods for purifying lithium streams or exploring feasibility of new technologies.

This position also includes safety leadership through individual assignments and committee participation. The person in this position will also be expected to lead technical and capital projects as needed.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Ensure area complies for all regulatory and training requirements.
• Ability to perform hands on laboratory work with a variety of chemicals and equipment safely.
• Experience with hazard assessments and an MOC process a plus.
• Full participation in company, department and site safety programs including incident and near miss reporting, self-assigned safety action items.

Business Support

• Interface with others in various parts of the organization to ensure existing and future customer requirements are met. These include Operations, Supply Chain, Sales and Marketing, Applications R&D, Process Development, Quality Assurance, Transportation, Accounting and other Livent sites.
• The main technical responsibilities for this position are as follows:
• Develop economical and practical solutions to Operational challenges. Most work will be of an inorganic chemical nature. This will include studying extraction of lithium from new resources and/or with new technologies, exploring improvements to our own technologies for selective lithium extraction and production of lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate and other lithium products.
• Competency for analytical equipment needed for supporting your own work (ICP-OES, titrations, others as needed
• Participate in and/or lead pilot trials for new technology scale up
• Experience with electrochemistry, membrane separation technologies and ion exchange resins is strongly desired
• Ability to quickly and independently learn new skills and techniques is required
• Problem solving issues with quality and process improvements. Ability to develop your own ideas and the plan to explore those ideas.
• Mechanical aptitude is desired.
• Ability to safety and economically manage small to medium size capital projects and support their implementation with Isolations and Safe Work Permits.
• Work according to priorities established by the Global Process Development Manager and provide regular updates.
• Must have good written and oral communication skills to document new technology and intellectual property.
• Role may require occasional travel to tollers, international plant sites and customers.
• Interface with others in the organization to ensure internal and external customer deadlines and requirements are met.

People

• Good team player to be able to effectively progress lab work and plant trials/improvements.
• Responsible for planning, assigning, and directing work for your own projects and the work of others when you are the project manager.
• Ability to actively engage with people and customers remotely to drive results.

Key Relationships/Customers:

• Internal: Global Process Development Manager, Applications Research & Development, Division Leadership, global plant sites, Global Quality Manager
• External: Vendors, Contractors, Tollers and Customers

Education and Experience

• BA/BS in Chemistry or related technical degree required. Advanced degree desirable.
• 10+ years experience in a research laboratory.
• Extensive experience with inorganic chemical processing techniques required.
• Demonstrated history of successful process improvement and new technology implementation.

Knowledge and Skill Requirements

• Advanced knowledge of chemistry and inorganic chemical separation technology.
• Excellent laboratory skills.
• General working knowledge of plant engineering, and common analytical techniques.
• Experienced with business software systems (SAP); MS Office, MiniTab, and LQM.
• Ability to work independently to solve problems with minimal input.
• Must have good written and oral communication skills and proven ability to lead teams, train and problem solve.
• Excellent interpersonal skills required.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
  
  

Safety Requirements: All employees are expected to carry out their work functions in a healthy and safe manner, to encourage and support safe work practices at all times, and to report and/or rectify any unsafe conditions that may come to their attention immediately.

Physical Demands: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to walk and use hands to finger, handle, or feel. The employee is occasionally required to stand; climb or balance and taste or smell. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision and color vision.

Work Environment: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is frequently exposed to toxic or caustic chemicals. The employee is occasionally exposed to wet and/or humid conditions; moving mechanical parts; fumes or airborne particles and outside weather conditions. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

Personal Protective Equipment: Must wear PPE as required based on job duties or when traveling to locations where PPE is essential.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed above are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

LIVENT employs people across a broad range of occupations in locations across the world. We are looking for people to join us in creating, developing, and improving our products, our processes, and our markets. Employees enjoy competitive compensation, a menu of work/life benefits and opportunities to continue developing their skills and building their career.

LIVENT is an Equal Opportunity Employer, EEO, AAE, MFDV and supports a drug free workplace.