Lignin Valorization Expert (Product Commercialization Lead)

RennoWaste is building the next generation of biorefinery infrastructure, and we treat every stream that leaves the plant as a product worth engineering rather than a waste worth disposing of. We pair pilot scale processing of agricultural residue and biomass with downstream valorisation of by-products into higher value materials such as lignin derivatives, coatings, and adhesives. Lignin is not a side stream here. It sits at the centre of our materials roadmap and feeds live product lines, including RennoBinder, our formaldehyde free plywood adhesive platform.

Lignin is one of the most underexploited renewable feedstocks on the planet. It is the largest natural source of aromatic carbon, and most of it is still burnt for low grade heat. We are building the team to change that, and we want a scientist who can carry the chemistry from the bench to a product on the market.

This is the lignin seat at the heart of our materials work. You will own the valorisation science end to end, from the characterisation of incoming technical lignins through depolymerisation, fractionation, and functionalisation, to a defined, scalable, commercially viable product.

It is a hands on, lab to pilot role. You will move between bench chemistry and pilot data, and you will translate academic grade research into industrial process design alongside our process engineering and business teams. The work is judged on whether the chemistry holds up at scale and whether the product performs in a real application, not on whether it makes an elegant paper.

You will report into the materials and commercialisation track and work closely with the process engineering and valorisation teams, but the lignin science is yours to lead: route selection, catalyst and solvent strategy, product targeting, and the structure to performance reasoning that ties them together.

• Develop and optimize depolymerization, fractionation, and functionalization routes across technical lignins, including kraft, organosolv, soda, and lignosulphonates, and select the route that fits the feedstock and the target product
• Target defined high value product streams: phenolic platform chemicals, aromatic monomers, polyols, binders and adhesives, dispersants, coatings, and carbon precursors
• Cleave and rebuild the lignin backbone with intent, working across catalytic hydrogenolysis, oxidative and acidolytic depolymerization, base catalyzed routes, and reductive catalytic fractionation, and understanding when the beta aryl ether linkages help you and when they fight you
• Characterize lignin rigorously, linking molecular weight distribution and polydispersity, functional group content, syringyl to guaiacyl ratio, and purity to downstream performance
• Translate lab chemistry into scalable, techno economically viable processes with the process engineering team, and own the assumptions that survive scale up
• Feed RennoBinder and the wider materials roadmap directly, including the replacement of fossil derived phenol in adhesives and resins
• Run bench and pilot scale trials, design experiments that isolate the variable that matters, interpret the data, and convert findings into field ready protocols
• Support scale up from pilot to commercial operation alongside EPC and plant operations teams
• Track the patent and literature landscape, protect what we build, and keep our routes ahead of the field

• A PhD or masters in chemistry or chemical engineering with hands on lignin research, and depth in one or more of catalytic depolymerization, reductive catalytic fractionation, ionic liquid or deep eutectic solvent systems, biorefinery integration, or lignin based materials
• Postdoctoral or industry R&D experience, with evidence that you can take a route from idea to working process
• A genuine drive to see your chemistry become a product on the market, not just a paper in a journal
• Comfort working across scales, from bench reactions to pilot plant to commercial deployment
• The instinct to reason from lignin structure, to reactivity, to product performance, and back again

• Formulation experience with adhesives, resins, polyurethanes, epoxies, or coatings
• Familiarity with India's bioeconomy and policy landscape, including BioE3 and biorefinery incentive schemes
• Techno economic assessment or process modelling capability
• A record of granted or filed patents

• Lignin is the centerpiece of our materials roadmap, not an afterthought, so your science sets product direction rather than supporting someone else's
• Your routes get tested and iterated on a real pilot facility, quickly, rather than buried inside a generic EPC contract
• There is a direct line from your bench work to a product on the market, including RennoBinder, so your formulation choices ship
• You will have genuine ownership over scale up decisions and direct access to pilot infrastructure
• A small, technically serious team where valorization chemistry is treated as core IP, and the chance to shape India's emerging bioeconomy from the ground floor.