Job Description

, Netherlands

Worker Type:

Interns (Fixed Term) (Trainee)

Posting Start Date:

August 5, 2026

Intern assignment

Describe the responsibilities and activities related to the Assignment. If relevant, relate these activities to the requirements for completion of the Internship as set by the Institute of Education. Include details of department where the Internship will be carried out.

Internship project title:

Functional hydrogel-composite materials for Water and Heat Management

Goals and objectives

Global warming compels us to rethink the materials and infrastructure on which modern society depends. Porous materials play a central role in energy, cooling, insulation, water management, purification and storage, yet such materials are still designed passively and their performance only evaluated after manufacture. This project introduces a disruptive concept: the active design of functional composite materials in which hydrogels are embedded into a porous matrix, which can absorb and release water, with respective evaporative cooling effects, that can effectively cool down buildings.

This MSc-level internship project is set out to establish the fundamentals of swelling of hydrogels by water take-up and release by evaporation where the respective changes in swelling state and inter-connectivity between hydrogels embedded into the porous matrix is imaged in-situ by X-ray computed micro-tomography following the swelling / de-swelling cycles. The expected outcome of the study is a first-pass assessment of the thermodynamic efficiency of such materials for self-adaptive cooling and related water-heat management applications for buildings.

Deliverables:

• Mid-term report, presentation

• Final report, MSc thesis (required by the academic institution) , final report

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