PhD Student – RAISE Project

The Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) is seeking a PhD student to work in Prof. Julio Lloret’s Research Group. The project will accelerate the discovery of electrocatalysts for converting CO₂ into fuels and chemical feedstocks by combining catalyst design, automated high-throughput experimentation, real-time analysis and artificial intelligence. This position will be funded by the project AIA2025-163492-C53 – Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Intensified Synthesis and Experimentation (RAISE).

The successful candidate will work with AMPER, an automated modular platform for electrochemical research developed at ICIQ. AMPER integrates robotic handling, gas and liquid management, electrochemical testing, analytical instrumentation and modular software control. The PhD project will contribute to converting this platform into a closed-loop self-driving laboratory in which experimental data are analyzed as they are generated and Bayesian optimization, active learning and AI agents propose the next most informative experiments.