Technical Assistant – Department of Chemistry – Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences needed at University of Pretoria/Universiteit van Pretoria

RESPONSIBILITIES:

The incumbent will be responsible for:

Assisting with Running 2nd and 3rd Year Practicals in the Department

• Pouring technical-grade solvents (e.g. acetone) from drums into smaller containers and place them in the lab;
• Filling drums with deionised water;
• Preparing shelf reagents (e.g. 6M acidic or basic solutions) and distribute them in smaller containers through the undergraduate laboratories;
• Distilling technical solvents (e.g. ether);
• Placing specialized equipment at each student’s locker when needed for certain practical sessions;
• Assisting during the practical sessions with dispensing and handling metered out individual samples to students;
• Assisting with placing chemicals and apparatus for practical sessions;
• Preparing standardised stock solutions for issuing individual samples to students;
• Filling up the steam baths with water if needed for a specific practical and make sure it does not boil dry during the practical session;
• Unpacking, placing, calibrating and testing specialised equipment (e.g. conductivity meters or spectrophotometers) for the practicals; 
• Checking and testing all items used in practical sessions, glassware, hotplates, etc.;
• Weighing out reagents in polytops for some of the experiments for each student/pair individually;
• Making capillary tubes for chromatography practicals (second and third-year students);
• Cutting TLC pates and/or chromatography paper to the correct size;
• Attending and assist students with their needs during the practical sessions;
• Ensuring that there is enough distilled water, solvents, materials, and/or solutions in the labs throughout the whole practical session;
• Collecting ice when needed for various practical sessions;
• Preparing and pour solutions into reagent bottles for practical sessions, and make sure they are correctly labelled and filled for all the practical sessions;
• Checking balances are operational and clean; 
• Cleaning spills (water and/or chemicals) and lab benches during and after the practical session;
• Ensuring suitably labelled waste containers are available for each practical session;
• Replacing any glassware which is broken during practical sessions and report these breakages to the laboratory manager to ensure replacement orders are made;
• Ensuring instruments are calibrated before practical sessions;
• Assisting with the operation of instruments (e.g. Ultra Violet Visible Spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) or similar) during student practicals;
• Performing General Laboratory Tasks for Organic/Inorganic Chemistry Clusters

Gas and liquid nitrogen management:

• Stock taking of cylinders: Counting of full and empty gas cylinders for ordering purposes;
• Fetching full gas cylinders from gas store and the technical store;
• Safely connecting gas cylinders to gas lines and instrumentation;
• Leak check gas connections and lines;
• Disconnecting empty cylinders and return them to the gas store;
• Ensuring a continuous supply of gases by monitoring gas gauges/levels of cylinders daily and changing cylinders timeously before the gas runs out;
• Receiving delivery of gas cylinders from suppliers;
• Fetching liquid nitrogen from the technical store;
• Connecting liquid nitrogen Dewars to instrumentation; 
• Daily monitoring of liquid nitrogen levels and replenishment timeously before running out of liquid nitrogen;

Laboratory housekeeping:

• Keeping laboratories and chemical stores neat, and equipment and containers dust free; 
• Cleaning of glassware, and general laboratory items;
• Timeously replenishing empty paper towel rolls, soap dispensers, and various other laboratory general cleaning items;
• Collecting requisition items from the store;
• Waste management;
• Providing Technical and Instrument Support

Technical:

• Sample preparation for the organic and inorganic chemistry clusters;
• Weighing of materials and samples;
• Assisting postgraduate students with access to instrumentation (such as UV-vis, FTIR);

General Assistance and Support

• Assisting with moving departmental assets;
• Requesting quotations from suppliers;
• Ad-hoc duties as required by the department;
• Collecting orders;
• Safe storage of chemicals;
• Inventory on a 3-month basis.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

• Diploma in Chemistry or related field with at least one (1) years’ relevant experience OR;
• Grade 12 with at least three (3) years’ relevant experience.