In November 2022, negotiators will gather in Sharm El-Sheikh to progress the state of play on the Paris Agreement – our global response to the climate crisis. In the lead up to this meeting, IChemE Fellow Mary Stewart, an observer to the processes of the UNFCCC, the global body with oversight of the Paris Agreement, outlines the main themes of the conference.
Continue reading COP27: From Ambition to ImplementationTag: sustainability
How can chemical engineers help create a greener, safer, cleaner world?
Our world is evolving rapidly. We are facing many global challenges, such as enabling a transition to affordable, sustainable energy sources to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
As we evolve, we’ll continue to face more challenges. So, what could the next 100 years of chemical engineering look like to combat the future challenges?
Continue reading How can chemical engineers help create a greener, safer, cleaner world?
Meet a difference maker in…. health and wellbeing – Fotis Spyropoulos
In this blog series, which is part of our Sustainability Hub, we’re speaking to chemical engineers across the world making a difference to make sustainable practices and products a reality and more accessible to all for the wider benefit of our society and globe.
In today’s blog, Fotis Spyropoulos shares his work researching ways to create foods that are healthier – by reducing fats, sugar, and/or salt – but that still ensures their compounds and components are structurally-sound to make them commercially viable, as well as tasty and appealing for consumers. He gives an insight into the challenges he faces, as well as the critical chemical engineering skills to provide solutions ensuring the products hit the shelves.
Continue reading Meet a difference maker in…. health and wellbeing – Fotis Spyropoulos
Meet a difference maker in…. affordable energy – Sam Haig
In this blog series, which is part of our Sustainability Hub, we’re speaking to chemical engineers across the world making a difference to make sustainable practices and products a reality and more accessible to all for the wider benefit of our society and globe.
Here, Sam Haig explains his role in the recycling and recreation of lithium-ion batteries, and why it’s important to improve the process of utilising the materials within them to ensure once a battery reaches the end of its life there is not significant waste harming the environment. He talks about the challenges of these hazardous materials within batteries and handling production in a sustainable way, while demand is ever-increasing.
Continue reading Meet a difference maker in…. affordable energy – Sam Haig
Meet a difference maker…in affordable energy – Dr Mauro Luberti
In this blog series, which is part of our recently launched Sustainability Hub, we’re speaking to chemical engineers across the world making a difference to make sustainable practices and products a reality and more accessible to all for the wider benefit of our society and globe.
To mark Earth Day today (22 April 2022) in this blog, Dr Mauro Luberti explains the two different gas separation processes he’s using and explains the specialised laboratory equipment he’s developed to predict separation performance of adsorption processes. He’s also looking at ways to capture carbon dioxide more efficiently from power and hydrogen plants, and the importance of decarbonising these industrial sectors.
Continue reading Meet a difference maker…in affordable energy – Dr Mauro Luberti
Meet a difference maker…in health and wellbeing – John Civardi
In this blog series, which is part of our recently launched Sustainability Hub, we’re speaking to chemical engineers across the world making a difference to make sustainable practices and products a reality and more accessible to all for the wider benefit of our society and globe.
Today on World Health Day (7 April 2022), John Civardi talks about his experience as a water engineer, and how water is being contaminated with pharmaceutical waste, which could lead to the development of drug-resistant bacteria. He also explains why it’s important for chemical engineers to help solve this issue for better treatment and cleaning of waterways, groundwater and other water sources to prevent future threats to humans, animals and the environment.
Continue reading Meet a difference maker…in health and wellbeing – John Civardi
Meet a difference maker…in clean water – Professor Philip Davies
In this new blog series, we’re speaking to chemical engineers across the world making a difference to make sustainable practices and products a reality and more accessible to all for the wider benefit of our society and globe.
This is part of our recently launched Sustainability Hub, which is a giving chemical engineers access to a growing suite of new on-demand training courses and knowledge resources to help them to embed sustainable principles and practices into everyday work and life.
Today on World Water Day (22 March 2022), Professor Philip Davies shares his work in water desalination, and particularly his unique process combining reverse osmosis with renewable energy sources to create safe drinking water from seawater in arid countries.
Continue reading Meet a difference maker…in clean water – Professor Philip Davies
GUEST BLOG: Water and climate change #COP26
In this blog, IChemE Fellow Martin Currie talks about how a systems approach and collaboration beyond the water treatment community has taken the water climate discussion to COP26.
Continue reading GUEST BLOG: Water and climate change #COP26
GUEST BLOG: From COP21 to COP26
In December 2015, IChemE Fellow Stefaan Simons attended COP21 in Paris. Six years later he is in Glasgow for COP26 and shares his experiences of attending the pivotal climate change conference, explaining the progress IChemE has made with respect to climate change during that time.
Continue reading GUEST BLOG: From COP21 to COP26
Sustainable fuel solutions through multi-scale catalysis studies – Andrew Student Fellowship
Advancing heterogeneous catalysis and boosting collaboration between academics and industry to create solutions that benefit society was something the late Professor Syd Andrew was enthusiastic about.
In his passing, the IChemE Fellow and distinguished expert in the field of catalysis left a fund to support future generations of chemical engineers in the field. In commemoration, IChemE set up the Andrew Legacy.
It comprises of the Andrew Medal to recognise major contribution in the field, and the Andrew Fellowship to support researchers in heterogeneous catalysis – read about the latest recipients recently announced by IChemE. Additionally, in 2019, IChemE’s Board of Trustees agreed to a proposal to fund a promising PhD student at the University of Bath through a Andrew Student Fellowship.
Claire-Louise Woodward was the lucky winner of the Andrew Student Fellowship and will receive IChemE funding throughout her four-year research project. So, we decided to catch up with her after almost one year into her fellowship.
Continue reading Sustainable fuel solutions through multi-scale catalysis studies – Andrew Student Fellowship
Malaysia Award winners creating sustainable solutions for our Earth – #ichemeawards #EarthDay
Across the globe today, scores of people will be marking Earth Day (22 April) under this year’s theme, Restore our Earth.
While there is so much more to be done to help tackle climate change and prevent further environmental disasters, it’s also important to recognise the achievements of those who are working on extremely important regeneration and restoration initiatives, as well as creating sustainable processes and educational programmes to enhance the life of our planet and all living things upon it.
So, we caught up with three of our winners from the IChemE Malaysia Awards 2020 to learn more about how their award-winning projects are helping to do this.
Continue reading Malaysia Award winners creating sustainable solutions for our Earth – #ichemeawards #EarthDay
From waste wood to useful goods – IChemE Young Researcher Award winner 2019
An Imperial College London PhD student turned co-founder of sustainable solutions company Chrysalix Technologies, chemical engineer Florence Gschwend is passionate about creating a clean future for all.
It’s her company’s initiative the BioFlex Process – a process that turns thousands of tonnes of unused biomass material, including agricultural residues, energy crops and waste construction wood, into new raw material – that won her the Young Researcher Award at the IChemE Global Awards 2019.
To mark World Environment Day today (5 June), we’re sharing Florence’s story. In this video Florence explains more about how she and her colleagues are scaling up this sustainable technology and why she was delighted to be crowned the category winner at the IChemE Global Awards.
Do you know a young researcher who is using their technical knowledge to help address important economic, environmental or social issues?
Why not nominate them for the Young Researcher Award. Nominations are open now. The deadline for entries has been extended until 10 July 2020.
Find out more about this category and enter online at: www.icheme.org/globalawards
This video was produced by CMA Video
Addressing the Grand Challenges
Our mission, as set out in Strategy 2024, is to be a vibrant learned society that addresses the grand challenges.
IChemE’s principal technical committee, the Learned Society Committee (LSC), has been tasked with engaging IChemE’s members around delivering this.
LSC has prioritised focussing its initial work on responsible production, major hazard identification and management, and digitalisation. Below are the initial interpretations of these priorities.
Influencing policy: pushing R&D investment and the food agenda
Our members want to know more about how we support them to influence the development of national policies that affect chemical engineering.
Following this feedback from our member engagement survey, we are bringing you regular updates on the various policy areas in which we work with our members to provide evidence that inform policy- and decision-makers.
In our latest blog, we explain more on our collaborative approach with the National Engineering Policy Centre to urge the Government to spend more on research and development, what’s new for IChemE’s Energy Centre, as well as an update on the various consultation responses that we are working on.
Continue reading Influencing policy: pushing R&D investment and the food agenda
Household waste to low-carbon gas – IChemE Sustainability, Energy and Outstanding Award Winners 2018
The big winners at the IChemE Global Awards 2018 were a UK consortium consisting of Advanced Plasma Power, University College London, Cadent Gas and Progressive Energy.
The team took home three awards in the Sustainability, Energy and Outstanding Achievement categories, for their project, Converting Waste to BioSNG.
Together, they developed an innovative and unique gasification and catalytic process to turn household waste into a clean, green and renewable energy called Bio Synthetic Natural Gas (BioSNG). It’s a low-carbon gas that the team feel is a great contribution to decarbonise the energy sector and heat homes across the UK for years to come.
Find out more about the project, and the team’s reaction to winning three awards, in this video:
If you have a cutting-edge project that you think is worthy of an IChemE Global Award in any of these categories, make sure to enter by the end of today (12 July 2019) for this year’s award ceremony.
Today is the last chance to enter for the IChemE Global Awards 2019. Submit your entry online at: www.icheme.org/awards
This video was produced by CMA Video.
ChemEngDay 2019 – Highlights
Chemical engineers gathered at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh this week for the annual ChemEngDay conference. ChemEngDay was initiated to facilitate networking between chemical engineers in the academic community, and this year was the first time it has been held in Scotland.
116 chemical engineering academics, researchers, PhD students and industry experts came together to share insight and knowledge under the following themes:
• bioprocessing and biotechnology;
• catalysis and novel materials;
• energy;
• particulate technology;
• process modelling and simulation; and
• sustainable industry.
IChemE joined Aramco, Armfield, GUNT Technology and PA Hilton to exhibit at the conference and to speak to the academic community to learn more about their work and how these chemical engineers are helping provide solutions to global challenges.
Celebrating chemical engineering achievement in sustainability #ichemeawards
It’s time for another round -up of our IChemE Global Awards 2016 winners, and this time we’re focusing on sustainability.
In our modern world projects that deliver a sustainability benefit are usually successful. In fact, all our winners this year have demonstrated some kind of sustainable element in their work. Whether it’s taking on large projects, developing products for poor communities, or innovating to change lives.
But these winners have put sustainability at the heart of what they do. Pushing the limits to find the most environmentally-friendly way of doing things, some of them are also very young companies – and ones to watch in the future.
So please take a look at the following three winners videos, and as always thanks to Morgan Sindall for helping us to produce them.
Continue reading Celebrating chemical engineering achievement in sustainability #ichemeawards
Guest blog: #WorldWaterDay
IChemE’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are an essential way for our members to share knowledge and collaborate on initiatives, which are of significance to their sector.
Today is World Water Day, and our Water SIG is a hugely important part of providing expert advice and consultation to the innovations that could change our world. Water is essential to life, it must be sustainable or we cannot survive. Chemical engineers are an important part of making sure water provision is sufficient, clean, economical, and environmentally-friendly.
Chris Short, Chair of the IChemE Water SIG, explores in more detail the current challenges for the water sector in today’s blog post. Read on to hear his thoughts, and feel free to join the conversation on Twitter using #WorldWaterDay or by leaving a comment below:
Name: Chris Short
Job: Consultant and Chartered Chemical Engineer
Company: Chris Short Water Quality (previously Yorkshire Water)
Special Interest Group: Water, Chairman
Today is World Water Day, and I’ll be attending a conference in Leeds, UK, on Innovations in Wastewater Treatment. The focus will be on the recovery of value from wastewater and I expect to hear how leading-edge technologies are performing and what new processes are being evaluated by researchers.
This is exciting stuff.
Sustainable bioenergy can dramatically reduce global carbon emissions #COP21
The COP21 talks in Paris came to a turning-point on Saturday, as an update to the draft agreement was released. Finance appears to be the over-riding issue as we settle in to the second week of the conference – but what about the solutions?
Did you know that more than half of the world’s annual carbon emissions could be prevented over the next 50 years by using sustainable bioenergy?
According to research by Pacala and Socolow, outlined by the IChemE Energy Centre, 25 billion tonnes of carbon emissions can be prevented from entering the atmosphere – simply by switching from fossil-based petroleum to bioethanol as our primary transportation fuel.
So why aren’t we using it already?
The raw materials used in bioenergy production – food crops like maize and sugarcane – come with a lot of associated challenges. Food crops are by no means guaranteed; a bad season could have a detrimental effect, particularly in developing countries who rely on their crops as a means of livelihood. Concerns about the economical implications for developing countries have already been raised in Paris – and could be a deal-breaker for alternative fuels like bioenergy.
Continue reading Sustainable bioenergy can dramatically reduce global carbon emissions #COP21
Going green is here to stay (Day 95)
When multinational companies commit to ‘going green’, you know the trend is here to stay. If legislation doesn’t catch you out, then consumers and customers will. It’s just a matter of time.
I think the business arguments for organisations to become more sustainable are clear: reduced waste and costs; greater efficiency; employee approval and loyalty; competitive edge; great PR; adding value to your brand; and even increases to the bottom line are some of the potential benefits on offer.
The tension of short-termism (Day 70)
One of the biggest frustrations that many scientists and engineers face, both in academia and industry, is short-termism. For issues like sustainability it’s problematic.
Investors and politicians can be nervous about taking the long-term view. Business likes quick wins; figures it can report quarterly and give annual performance targets.
By contrast, the journey to sustainability is often gradual, steady and long-term. For many of us it is a continual process of improvement – a step-by-step process of finding ways to use less energy, reduce waste and generally improve.
Cars made from tom-auto sauce (Day 56)
There’s always lots of news and debate about how vehicles of the future will be powered, but rarely is there a conversation about what they might be made from.
Car production has become a lot more sustainable in recent years, with specific legislation introduced in many countries for manufacturers. Estimates suggest up to 90 per cent of a car leaving the production line today could be recycled.
But what if some of those materials used to make cars are also the product of inventive recycling?
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