Prof. Bhavik Bakshi's Talk

Aug 01, 2013 - 17:00

Aug 01, 2013 - 18:00

Creativity Hall (Room 118) Chemical Engineering

Seminars

Prof. Bhavik Bakshi Dept. of Chemical Engineering Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Abstract : Pollination soil formation nitrogen cycling and disease regulation are examples of ecosystem services which form the very basis of all human activities. Despite their critical importance and global degradation most engineering decisions including those based on methods meant to enhance sustainability ignore these essential resources. Thus despite the growing interest in sustainability at corporations governments universities and among consumers making decisions without accounting for the goods and services that provide our life support could lead to perverse outcomes. Our research is expanding the boundary of Process Systems Engineering to address the challenges of sustainable engineering by including economic and ecological systems. This talk will focus on the challenges in accounting for the role played by nature in supporting industrial activities and in designing nature-inspired networks of technological and ecological systems. The use of life cycle assessment methods for guiding engineering decisions will be demonstrated by applications to emerging products such as polymer nanocomposites. Ecologically-based LCA will be introduced as a way to consider the direct and indirect role of ecosystem services in supporting industrial activities and the unique insight provided by this approach will be demonstrated by application to various transportation fuels. For designing sustainable technological systems the approach of Eco-Synergy Design will be introduced. This approach expands the concept of unit operations to ecological processes to design integrated networks of technological and ecological systems that aim to mimic nature by closing all material loops and maximizing network efficiency. Such nature-inspired biomimetic design of techno-ecological networks permits exploration of a much larger design space than possible with the traditional engineering approach while encouraging design and innovation within ecological constraints. This approach will be illustrated by application to systems such as a suburban home waste management and the biofuel life cycle. Application of such work for enhancing campus sustainability will also be described.About the Speaker : Bhavik Bakshi is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Research Director of the Center for Resilience at The Ohio State University Columbus USA. His research focuses on understanding the challenges of sustainable development and on developing systematic and scientifically rigorous methods for meeting these challenges. This includes new methods for analyzing the life cycle of existing and emerging technologies for including the role of ecosystem services in supporting human activities and for designing sustainable systems by integrating technological and ecological systems. He has published extensively serves on various editorial boards and has received numerous awards including the Research Excellence in Sustainable Engineering from AIChE. He received his B. Chem. Eng. from the University of Bombay and MSCEP and Ph.D. from MIT all in chemical engineering.