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Postdoctoral Appointee: Separations
Posted Sep 24, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026
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Likely interview questions for this role
Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.
About your past
Tell me about a system you helped build and run. What did you learn about the gap between plan and reality?
What they are checking: Whether they have hands-on experience constructing and operating experimental systems.
Tell me about a time you worked with an industry partner. How did their goals differ from yours?
What they are checking: Whether they can work with industry and academic partners at MERF.
How do you decide when to work independently and when to bring in teammates?
What they are checking: Whether they balance independence with teamwork, as the posting asks.
What would you do
Your heating step improves recovery but also changes the impurity profile. What do you do?
What they are checking: Whether they can reason about selectivity tradeoffs across the whole process.
What would make you confident a process is ready to move beyond bench scale?
What they are checking: Whether they think about reproducibility, scalability and economics before scaling up.
About the work
How would selective heating, like microwave or induction heating, help a hydrometallurgical process recover critical materials?
What they are checking: Whether they understand how heating technologies can be integrated with leaching, the core of this project.
How would you design a bench-scale continuous system that combines selective heating with slurry processing?
What they are checking: Whether they can think through flow, heat transfer and control in a combined system.
How would you use XRD, SEM, FTIR and Raman to understand what happened to a material during processing?
What they are checking: Whether they can choose and combine the analytical tools the posting lists.
How would you study transport and reaction behavior inside a slurry?
What they are checking: Whether they can design experiments that explain why a process works, not just whether it does.
What safety issues come with combining heating systems and chemical slurries?
What they are checking: Whether they anticipate hazards like pressure buildup, hot spots and corrosive fumes.
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Practice this out loudThe full job description
As published by Argonne National Laboratory.