Background
MNEXT collaborates with SMEs, students, and researchers on practice-oriented research into sustainable materials such as biobased plastics and contributes to the materials and energy transition. During this internship, you’ll be working within the research group Biobased Building Blocks and Products (BBBP), which focuses on the synthesis, processing, and application of biobased polymers and building blocks.
You will contribute to the EcoPro or BioColEol project, both of which build on the completed CurCol project. Over the past years, significant progress has been made in the development and synthesis of dyes based on curcumin—a natural yellow dye extracted from turmeric root. While curcumin is widely used as a food coloring, it is not stable enough on its own for applications such as plastics. However, the newly developed dyes offer promising potential for such uses.
Your role in the project will be to compound these new dyes into polymers to create so-called color masterbatches and to further process these batches through extrusion. You will test the resulting compounds for properties such as colorfastness and explore how various dyes, polymers, and additives affect the final color and material characteristics. In addition, you will test the thermal stability of the dyes in the polymer matrix using analytical techniques such as DSC and TGA.
Desired skills
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Fourth-year MBO or third-year HBO student in chemistry, chemical technology, physical/chemical analysis, lab technology, process technology, or a related field
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Strong command of Dutch and/or English.
What we offer
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An internship allowance of €350/month.
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A valuable learning experience at Avans University of Applied Sciences in Breda.