Process Engineer - Critical Minerals | Pilot & Scale-Up

Yoh Services LLC; Georgia; On-site; USD 72,000 - 103,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Health Savings Account

Life & Disability Insurance

401K Retirement Savings

Direct Deposit & epayroll

Referral bonuses

Training opportunities

Job summary

Yoh Life Sciences in Houston, TX seeks a Process Engineer for Critical Minerals on a contract basis to support development, optimization, scale-up, and deployment of brine-processing systems spanning lab to commercial scale.

The role collaborates across engineering, chemistry, operations, and vendors; requires strong hands-on problem solving, ability to move between calculations and field work, and a track record in hydrometallurgy or separation processes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Minerals Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Approximately 5+ years of experience in process engineering, process development, pilot operations, hydrometallurgy, water treatment, chemical processing, or a related industrial environment.
• Experience developing, operating, troubleshooting, or scaling chemical or separation processes.
• Working knowledge of mass balances, process calculations, equipment sizing, and process optimization.
• Ability to read and develop PFDs and P&IDs.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize process flowsheets for brine, produced-water, iodine, and lithium recovery systems.
• Translate laboratory and bench-scale results into pilot, demonstration, and commercial process designs.
• Prepare and maintain process flow diagrams, P&IDs, equipment specifications, operating procedures, and process documentation.
• Perform mass and energy balances, process calculations, equipment sizing, and operating-envelope development.
• Support the design, fabrication, installation, commissioning, and operation of pilot and demonstration systems.
• Evaluate unit operations such as adsorption, ion exchange, membranes, solvent extraction, filtration, precipitation, concentration, and purification.
• Troubleshoot process, mechanical, instrumentation, and equipment issues during pilot and field operations.
• Track recovery, purity, throughput, reagent consumption, water quality, waste generation, and other key performance indicators.
• Develop sampling plans and collaborate with analytical teams to interpret brine and product-quality data.
• Support design reviews, HAZID/HAZOP activities, process safety assessments, and management-of-change processes.
• Work with equipment suppliers, contract engineering firms, EPC partners, and customer-site stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities to improve recovery, selectivity, reliability, operating cost, and system scalability.
• Communicate technical findings, risks, recommendations, and project status to internal and external stakeholders.
• Travel periodically to pilot facilities, customer sites, vendors, and project locations.

Skills

Process engineering

Troubleshooting

Pilot operations

Hydrometallurgy

Mass balances

PFDs & P&IDs

Equipment sizing

Documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering

Tools

Process simulation

Techno-economic analysis

PSM/HAZOP

Job description

Yoh Life Sciences in Houston, TX seeks a Process Engineer for Critical Minerals on a contract basis to support development, optimization, scale-up, and deployment of brine-processing systems spanning lab to commercial scale.

The role collaborates across engineering, chemistry, operations, and vendors; requires strong hands-on problem solving, ability to move between calculations and field work, and a track record in hydrometallurgy or separation processes.