Senior Mechanical Engineer - ELYSIS

A New Era for the Aluminum Industry – ELYSIS 

Carbon Free Aluminum                                                                         

The ELYSIS™ technology is the greatest breakthrough in the aluminum industry since its beginnings in 1886. Work is underway now to further develop this revolutionary new way to produce aluminum, eliminating carbon dioxide and all other greenhouse gas emissions from the traditional smelting process.

The ELYSIS process eliminates the use of carbon anodes, replacing those with proprietary materials. It is the first industrial process that emits oxygen as its by-product and has the potential to transform an entire industry.

In 2018, two international aluminum producers, Alcoa and Rio Tinto, came together to form the ELYSIS joint venture with the provincial government of Quebec. With support from the Canadian Government and Apple, the technology is progressing and is currently being designed to support the construction of new smelters or retrofits.

ELYSIS is headquartered in Montreal, with Technology Research & Development locations in Alma, Quebec, (Canada), in Jonquiere, Quebec, (Canada), in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, (United States), and in France.

Commercial quality metal produced by ELYSIS during the ongoing R&D process is already being used by Apple in a variety of products (The 16-inch MacBook Pro and the iPhone SE); Ab InBEV (cans); Audi (e-tron GT wheels produced by the RONAL Group), and Corona (cans).

Join the ELYSIS team in this exciting work!

About the location

The ELYSIS US Research & Development facility is located in the Alcoa Technical Center (ATC) in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Located near Pittsburgh, the carbon-free smelting process was first developed at ATC, where a dedicated team is working to reinvent the aluminum industry for a sustainable future.

About the job

Under the direction of Engineering Manager and R&D Program Director, the applicant will provide Mechanical Engineering support for new technology development in the Breakthrough Technology Division of Alcoa located at the Alcoa Technical Center in New Kensington, PA.

This position involves industrial equipment design and complex problem solving in a fast-paced R&D environment supporting breakthrough technology aimed at revolutionizing the aluminum smelting industry to eliminate CO2 production from the aluminum smelting process. The candidate will lead and perform design and engineering work, propose, lead, analyze, and report on research experiments, work with the operations team to plan and implement tests on operating process equipment to evaluate design performance.

To excel in this role the candidate will need a passion for engineering, research, and problem solving with a desire to work on the cutting edge of science and technology. The ideal candidate will be excited to solve problems they have never encountered before, in high temperature chemically reactive environments where few materials will survive on a team capable of designing and manufacturing new materials. In this role the engineer will have the opportunity to work with PHD materials scientists, chemists, electro-chemists, analytical chemists with a full suite of analytical lab equipment, as well as teams of engineers and scientists in France and Canada all dedicated to the same goal of commercializing a revolutionary breakthrough smelting technology.

The Breakthrough Technologies Team is involved in the production and treatment of molten metal producing systems inclusive of bench scale to full commercial size production units. The applicant will be encouraged to participate from concepts through design, construction and operation of systems at the various scales to optimize the final design of equipment and support systems for commercial scale operation.

Major Responsibilities

• Providing day-to-day technical advice, develop designs with designers and technicians and interact with other specialists and scientists in a collaborative environment to reach program goals.
• Lead research projects involving operational testing, autopsy, root cause analysis, risk analysis, and solutions development relating to equipment and process design.
• Create and present detailed PowerPoint presentations summarizing design and research activities in a clear and concise manner, able to answer tough questions posed by a team of passionate engin