Technology Scale-up Manager, Next Generation Direct Air Capture

Company introduction

Maia’s purpose is to scale-up, industrialize and launch on the market the lowest energy consumption scalable Direct Air Capture technology.

DAC is a necessary technology to keep the Earth’s temperature below 2°C, but today’s processes would consume unsustainable quantities of energy, land, or water if deployed at the required scale. We are solving that.

The technology is based on a novel integration of two CO2 desorption technologies, which allows Maia to undercut the thermodynamic and kinetic limits of existing processes.

Maia is a spin out from Deep Science Ventures, funded by the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, which was been incorporated in May 2023 by its founders Harry Macpherson (CTO) and Aurélie Gonzalez (CEO).

Job General scope

Maia is looking for its first key collaborator to make it a reality.

The “Technology scale-up manager” will be in charge of the end-to-end pilot scale-up, including the co-development of the technology.

The position consists of taking the lead in engineering technological development to increase the TRL level of the DAC technology from an actual TRL of 3 up to a TRL of 5/6 the first year and then TRL 8 in the following years.

Engineering and building/Scale-up of a first pilot unit capturing 1 tonne of CO2/day, as well as engineering studies for commercial-scale applications.

This development will be performed in partnership with external companies (to be selected), such as but not limited to an electrochemical technology supplier, an absorption system (so-called air contactor) manufacturer, a compression train supplier, an engineering contractor…

You will help build a team to operate our first demonstrator units and perform early engineering activities. This position reports to the CEO & CTO.

Main Missions & Objectives:

The main responsibilities of the Technology scale-up manager would be:

• Selection of main industrial partners and participation in partnership negotiation
• Project management for demonstrator units engineering and building/scale up.
• Project management for basic engineering studies
• Building and management of the engineering team
• Development of innovative process schemes and conceptual drawings for proprietary equipment
• Assist in creating our technology development roadmap
• Participate in intellectual property protection in coordination with lawyers and councils, including participation in patent applications.

Requirements

We are looking for a skilled and experienced chemical or process engineer who is urgently motivated to fight climate change by helping build a direct air capture company:

• The qualification needed is by order of importance:
  • Engineer/Ph.D. in chemical or process engineering with project management experience
  • Min 7-10 years experience in chemical (process) engineering is a must, especially experience bringing a technology from the lab to pilot or industrial scale. Ideally, you’ll have experience working with external engineering contractors
  • Competence in CO2 capture would be a plus, at least in oil & gas industries or heavy industries
  • Soft skills and team working spirit, autonomy
  • Flexibility on the type of duties to be performed and capacity to work on different topics simultaneously – Polyvalent/Multitask.
  • Overall, we are looking for a hands-on process builder who is creative, fast and a leader in working practice for the environment, health and safety.

Benefits

The position will offer a very high level of autonomy.

The position will offer the opportunity to make a practical contribution to mitigating the climate crisis. The position may lead to a C-Level position as the company expands.

Share options are part of the benefits package.

Contact

Aurélie Gonzalez, CEO

Mob: 33(0) 7 86 20 94 48

Email: [email protected]