Internship: Research & Development

From our awareness about the importance of a responsible leather industry around the world, Royal Smit & Zoon is continuously searching for sustainable solutions for the entire leather value chain. In the leather industry, R&D plays a crucial role in this search through developing chemistry into products suitable for leather processing. At Royal Smit & Zoon R&D, we believe that we have a social responsibility to offer a good learn & work environment for trainees. Furthermore, we target to have internships designed such that these are not only beneficial for the individual intern, but also for Royal Smit & Zoon.

Internship location:

The R&D department consists of 15 chemists/chemical engineers, which are all involved either in product development, process development or analytical support, and the intern is anticipated to be fulfilling the internship as a full member of the process development sub-team. The intern is expected to work primarily from the R&D laboratory located on the Royal Smit & Zoon production site in Amersfoort.

Internship assignment:

Fat liquors are processed fats (triglycerides of fatty acids) of plant, animal and fish oils. These processed fats are used to soften the tanned leathers. Fat liquors gives the leathers required soft character to suits for the application articles such as car, shoe, garment and upholstery. Our group or Fat liquors is based on sulphited oils. A recent student project have preliminaryresults on different ways how we could optimise this process. 

During the internship your assignment would:

• Further (Design of Experiment) test based on the hypothesis indicated by the last internship student, guided by a principal scientist. By doing so an improved product and an optimized sulphitation process will be developed.

Background trainee:

• You are studying for a Master’s degree in the field of Chemistry (preferably Organic Chemistry) or Chemical Engineering;
• You are engaged to build knowledge and experience in the chemical industry;
• You have an open mindset and a can-do attitude;
• You are interested in working in an international operating family-owned company;
• You are driven to make the industry more sustainable;
• You have good communication skills;
• You are available for a period of at least 5 months.

What does Royal Smit & Zoon offer you:

• Professional supervision providing valuable feedback on your performance;
• An internship allowance of €600,- gross per month, based on 40 hours per week;
• Opportunity to show your technical skills and interests;
• Royal Smit & Zoon, occasionally and based on excellent performance, offers the opportunity to interns to extend the internships;

About Royal Smit & Zoon:
Royal Smit & Zoon is one of the global market leaders in manufacturing of sustainable chemicals for leather production. We work closely with leather producers and brands to produce sustainable leather for your footwear, car interiors, fashion accessories and other leather goods.

We are a family-owned business, founded in 1821. In 2021, we celebrated our 200th anniversary and earned the designation “Royal” for our efforts of seven generations of entrepreneurship, innovation and focus on sustainability in the leather value chain.

You can make an impact by contributing to making the learning chain more sustainable and preparing the company for the 8th generation. The head office is located in Weesp which is easily accessible by public transport. Royal Smit & Zoon is active in more than 70 countries around the world. In addition to our headquarters in Weesp, we have offices and factories in Amersfoort (the Netherlands), Italy, India, China and Mexico. In the Netherlands we have about 150 colleagues, worldwide we work with almost 400 employees.

Our mission is to create a socially and environmentally sustainable learning value chain. In other words, to create value for customers and society through product and process innovations, and to make people more aware and familiar with sustainable solutions throughout the leather value chain. With this mission we help society as a whole, by offering leather not only as a sustainable basis for all kinds of beautiful products, but also by taking care of our planet and the next generations of people who will live here.

More information:
Do you want to jumpstart your chemical process development career and contribute to the chemical aspiration of Smit & Zoon as an intern?

For more information about this internship or the Royal Smit & Zoon organization, please contact Mark Letter (Corporate Recruiter) at +31 6 28 136 119 or [email protected]

Introduction of candidates by Recruitment agencies is neither appreciated nor wanted.