FutureFuel Chemical Company is seeking a Process Hazard Safety Engineer to join our PHES Laboratory. This role involves process hazard evaluation, modeling, scale-up, and optimization of specialty chemical processes. The engineer will support R&D and production teams by assessing process safety, conducting calorimetry and modeling studies, and driving improvements from lab to commercialization.

The Process Hazard Safety Engineer will play a critical role in ensuring the safe development, scale-up, and optimization of specialty chemical processes at FutureFuel Chemical Company. Working within the Process Hazard Evaluation, Scale-up, and Optimization (PHES) Laboratory, this engineer will bridge research, process design, and production operations to support both innovation and compliance. The position offers the opportunity to work with advanced tools and technologies, collaborate across multidisciplinary teams, and contribute directly to process safety, efficiency, and cost improvement initiatives.

• Conduct hazard evaluations of compounds and entire process systems for reactive chemistry issues, including OSHA PSM requirements, facility siting, vapor release modeling, vapor cloud/dust explosion analysis, and calorimetry studies.
• Perform process modeling (batch and continuous) using ASPEN.
• Support process scale-up activities including mixing studies, agitator and reactor design, and kinetics evaluation.
• Lead process optimization initiatives focused on raw material conversion, yield, mass/energy balances, cycle time, throughput, and cost reduction.
• Collaborate with R&D chemists, engineers, technicians, and production managers from bench scale through commercialization.
• Document hazard, scale-up, and optimization findings in technical reports.
• Serve as a member of the Process Safety Review Committee.
• Provide coaching, supervision, and development to technologists and technicians.
• Remain flexible in work assignments, contributing independently or as part of multidisciplinary teams.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering.
• Strong background in process hazard evaluation, ASPEN process modeling, air emission estimates, process scale-up, and process optimization.
• Ability to apply technical knowledge to assess process safety situations and alternatives.
• Strong technical and business writing skills.
• Excellent analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills with initiative and follow-through.

• PhD in Chemical Engineering.
• Experience with batch and continuous production of complex organic specialty chemicals.
• Familiarity with tools such as Mettler RC1 Calorimeter, Differential Scanning Calorimeter, Reactive System Screening Tool, CHETAH, and ASPEN.
• Supervisory or mentoring experience with technologists and technicians.

FutureFuel Chemical Company (FFCC) is a specialty and fine chemical manufacturing producer with an over forty-year successful plant history. FFCC has three business segments: custom/toll manufacturing, performance chemicals, and biodiesel. FFCC serves a wide variety of markets including pharmaceutical intermediates and products, nylon and polyester fibers, cleaning products, agricultural products, paints and coating, and fuels and energy.

FFCC is a small publicly traded company with approximately 500 employees that has a rich history of complex organic chemistry innovation, excellent environmental stewardship, and excellent health and safety compliance. We are a growing U.S. manufacturer of specialty organic chemicals and premium biofuels. Our company is headquartered in Clayton, St Louis and publicly listed on the NYSE under "FF". We have a world class integrated biofuels and specialty chemicals manufacturing facility in Batesville, Arkansas.

Batesville, Arkansas is a small rural town of about 10,000 on the foothills of the Ozark Mountains with excellent area schools, a University of Arkansas 2-year college and Lyon College, a highly rated Liberal Arts College. We are a strong outdoor community with the White River, nearby lakes, parks, bike trails, dog park, walking trails, excellent soccer and baseball/softball facilities, a thriving community and aquatics center and Historic Main Street, and close access to Blanchard Springs Caverns, The Ozark Folk Center, and the Buffalo River, one of the longest undammed rivers west of the Mississippi and the nation’s first National River designated by Congress in 1972 to preserve its clean water and other outstanding values. Batesville has a regional health care center, Community Theatre and Arts Council, a strong Chamber of Commerce, Mark Martin NASCAR Museum, and a regional historic. Visit Batesville at cityofbatesville.com.