Abstract:
The chemicals and materials industry (CMI) is a major economic driver across the world and its products are essential for our well-being. However, this industry is responsible for 30% of direct greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to ecological degradation due to products such as plastics, artificial fertilizers, and novel chemical entities. It also contributes to land use change and loss of biodiversity. A formidable challenge facing the CMI is to continue meeting human needs in an economically feasible manner without damaging the environment and society while restoring nature. This talk will introduce the challenges and describe advances toward reinventing the CMI to have net-zero emissions and enable ecological restoration. We will describe a systematic framework for designing a sustainable circular economy of CMI products. This framework can also guide future research by identifying the most promising alternatives for further development, and develop a roadmap for industry transition to meet goals such as carbon neutrality. To encourage decisions toward a nature-positive world, we explicitly account for the role that nature plays in supporting industrial activities and design integrated networks of industrial and ecological systems. Several applications demonstrate how such techno-ecologically synergistic systems can be economically feasible while encouraging ecological protection and restoration. Many challenges remain for future work including convergence of engineering with relevant aspects of economics and social sciences.
Speaker bio:
Bhavik Bakshi is the Richard M. Morrow Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The Ohio State University. He is also on the Faculty Advisory Board of OSU's Sustainability Institute. His research is developing systematic methods to ensure that engineering solutions make positive contributions to sustainable development without causing unintended harm. He has published extensively and teaches regular and short courses across the world. His work has been recognized by several awards including the University Distinguished Scholar Award from OSU, Education Leadership in LCA award from the American Council for Life Cycle Assessment, research excellence and education awards from the Sustainable Engineering Forum of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Lawrence K. Cecil Award for environmental chemical engineering from the Environmental Division of AIChE, the CAREER award from the U.S. National Science Foundation, and several best paper awards from journals and conferences. He has served on task forces such as the United Nations Environment Program's efforts toward sustainable development. He is a chemical engineer by training, with degrees from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.