Polymer Chemistry Intern

Without®; Pune District; On-site; INR 203,000 - 243,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stipend ₹20,000

Internship completion letter

Job summary

Without® in Pune invites a hands-on, curious intern to join the Science team and help turn VerdiCycle materials into real composite products. You’ll fabricate, inspect and test tiles, panels and moulded articles as we scale from lab to plant production.

You’ll work with post-consumer waste streams and collaborate with scientists and engineers on polymer reformulation, extrusion, moulding and product testing. This is a fast-paced, non-traditional internship with real responsibilities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Polymer Science, Polymer Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or Chemistry.
• Hands-on or coursework in spectroscopic, chromatographic, and thermal characterisation; specify instruments.
• Comfortable with messy input materials and statistics.
• Strong records discipline; if not written, it didn’t happen.
• Eager to learn quickly in a fast, exacting lab.

Responsibilities

• Run depolymerisation, polymerisation, compounding and formulation trials.
• Prepare samples for downstream testing.
• Maintain lab notebook and trial records.
• Collaborate with scientists and engineers to turn bench results into scalable production.
• Produce clean trial summaries with the numbers, method and uncertainty.

Skills

Polymer chemistry

Data documentation

Lab data interpretation

Eager to learn

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Polymer Science/Chemical Engineering

Tools

Spectroscopy

Chromatography

Thermal analysis

Job description

The tile on a wall or the panel in a car could have started life as a chip packet. Turning that idea into something you can actually hold is the job.

Without® is a Pune-based Certified B Corp taking on one of recycling's hardest problems: multilayer plastic (MLP) packaging and mixed textile waste — the stuff conventional recycling can't touch. Through our patented chemo-mechanical technology, VerdiCycle, we convert this "impossible-to-recycle" waste into engineering-grade recycled materials used across automotive, eyewear, packaging, and home & garden. We've been featured on Shark Tank India and Business Insider, and we're currently scaling up our first commercial plant.

We're looking for a hands-on, curious intern to join our Science team and help turn our VerdiCycle materials into real composite products — the tiles, panels, and moulded articles that take recycled waste from an idea to a finished thing. You'll help fabricate, inspect, and test these products as we scale them from bench to production. It's a rare seat at the intersection of polymer processing and circular-economy technology, from lab-scale trials all the way to plant-level production.

You'll work directly with post-consumer waste streams — municipal waste containing flexible packaging, and textile waste — feeding directly into how we improve the technology.

You'll be embedded in our Science team, alongside the scientists and engineers building our core technology — polymer reformulation, composite fabrication (extrusion and moulding), and product testing across our product lines. Fair warning: this isn't a typical 9-to-5, and it's not a watch-from-the-sidelines internship. You'll run real trials, handle real waste, and see your work show up in products that ship.

What you’ll do

Polymer Synthesis & Modification

Run depolymerisation, polymerisation, compounding, and formulation trials under supervision. Prepare samples for downstream testing.

Characterisation

Generate and interpret data from the techniques relevant to the sample — FTIR, GPC, DSC, TGA, MFI, rheometry, tensile and impact testing, optical microscopy. Know your instrument, know your data.

Data Discipline

Maintain the lab notebook and trial records to a standard that supports patents, TDS claims, and external audit. No shortcuts.

Collaboration

Work with polymer scientists, process engineers, and the manufacturing team to turn bench results into something that survives a pilot run.

Reporting

Produce clean trial summaries with the numbers, the method, and the uncertainty — not just the conclusion.

What we are looking for

Recently completed a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Polymer Science, Polymer Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or Chemistry.

• Working knowledge of polymer chemistry and polymer physics — molecular weight and distribution, thermal transitions, crystallinity, degradation, structure–property relationships.
• Hands-on or coursework exposure to spectroscopic, chromatographic, and thermal characterisation. Tell us which instruments you’ve actually operated and what you measured on them.
• Comfortable with messy, variable input material and the statistics that come with it.
• Rigorous about records. If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.
• Eager to learn fast in a lab where speed and accuracy aren’t a trade‑off — they’re the expectation.

Nice to have (not mandatory, but will make you stand out):

• Experience with recycled or post-consumer feedstock, PET chemistry, polyolefin compounding, or additive formulation.
• Familiarity with ASTM or ISO test methods for plastics.
• Basic data handling in Excel, Python, or R.

Your Compensation

• Monthly stipend of ₹20,000
• 6 month, full-time internship with an internship completion letter