Circular process systems engineering for a circular economy

Speaker: Prof. André Bardow (ETH Zurich) 

Our linear production system of fuels, chemicals and plastics is unsustainable. The petrochemical industry needs to replace its current fossil basis with renewables. Since deCARBONization is no alternative for many fuels and clearly not for chemicals and plastics, renewable carbon sources are required. The conversion of these renewable carbon sources into chemicals relies on innovation on the molecular scale, but needs to be rapidly upscaled to efficient processes and integrated into the highly integrated supply chains of the chemical industry.

In this presentation, we will present process systems engineering approaches to address the transformation towards a circular carbon economy. Circular carbon can come from biomass, CO2, and waste.  Novel chemical transformations of these carbon feedstocks need be rapidly analyzed, optimized and upscaled. For this purpose, we integrate molecular design methods into conceptual process design. To design towards both economic and environmental objectives already at early stages of development, predictive methods for life-cycle assessment are developed. The resulting optimized conversion processes are then integrated into a bottom-up models of the chemical industry and the energy system. Thereby, trade-offs and potential synergies can be resolved between the renewable carbon sources biomass, CO2 and waste recycling. Promising circular pathways are identified leading towards a net-zero chemical industry.

Bio

André Bardow has been full professor for Energy and Process Systems Engineering at ETH Zurich since 2020. Previously, he was a professor and head of the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at RWTH Aachen University (2010-​2020) and associate professor at TU Delft (2007-​2010). He was also in part-​time director of the Institute for Energy and Climate Research (IEK-​10) at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany (2017-​2022). He was a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2015/16). He earned his Ph.D. degree at RWTH Aachen University.

Prof. Bardow's group develops multi-scale solutions: systems design (from supply chains to environment & economy), process design (from process to supply chain), and molecular design (from molecules to process). The developed methodology is applied to problems: carbon capture and storage, circular carbon, and sector coupling.