Disruptive change - Transportation

OCTOBER 2023. RethinkX report on transportation. This is a good example of how technology innovation drives disruptive rates of rapid market and behaviour change - yielding huge benefits and impacts for industry and society.

Heng Hiap’s 'Plashaus' closing the loop & advancing plastic recycling in malaysia

OCTOBER 2023. The role of metals (eg lithium and cobalt) in renewable energy within a circular economy context. General observations of the role of chemical engineers in the circular economy and the transition to a low-carbon renewable energy future.

Food supply disruption from 2022 to 2030

JULY 2022. The cost of modern proteins will be five times cheaper by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035 than existing animal proteins, before ultimately approaching the cost of sugar. As described in this report produced by RethinkX, by 2030, modern food products will be higher quality and cost less than half as much to produce as the animal-derived products they replace, which will have strong implications for the cattle industry.

Using industrial digital technologies to drive circular economy implementation

MAY 2022. In this article produced by Fisher et al., using industrial digital technologies (IDT), circular material flows are demonstrated within waste valorisation and process resilience manufacturing systems towards sustainable process manufacturing. With two case studies of application included, the knowledge gap to integrate IDTs to achieve a circular economy is addressed.

Circular chemical economy

APRIL 2022. The National Interdisciplinary Centre for the Circular Chemical Economy (CircularChem) brings together the quadruple helix of stakeholders to transform the UK chemical industry based on the circular economy model. The overall novelty of the programme is the development of a sector-wide solution with deep circularity interventions, focusing on the resources flow of olefin — the raw material for 70% of all organic chemical production. Find out more through the CircularChem website.

Consumption – driving and defining issues of the future

MARCH 2022. Watch the recording of the ChemEng Evolution webinar with an introduction by Malcolm Wilkinson, Chair of the Sustainability SIG and a panel discussion on the theme of consumption and how chemical engineers should respond. Held on the 16 February 2022, this session formed part of the sustainability and environment themed month of IChemE's centenary celebrations where ideas and solutions being developed for a hopeful future are discussed.

Eco product design guidelines – plastics

JANUARY 2022. Development engineers working in the plastics industry need to re-design the products with sustainable materials and to enable separation and reuse/recycling of the polymers at end-of-life. The British Plastics Federation have collated this set of eco-design guidelines covering most types of plastics use and offering a range of measuring systems to quantify and compare 'sustainability' in polymer products.

The global methane assessment: Cuts and acts

JANUARY 2022. Methane gas creates 21 times higher environmental impact than carbon dioxide. Methane is the second largest emission after CO2 in driving climate change, and more than half of all methane emissions come from human activities across three sectors: fossil fuels (35%), waste (20%) and agriculture (40%). This article focuses on global methane assessment and reduction.

Chemical engineering and the circular economy in a low carbon future

JANUARY 2022. This presentation explains the concept of the circular economy in the extractive resources sector and gives an overview of current global initiatives to deliver on circular economy ideals. It includes some examples relevant to the industrial sectors in which chemical engineers work, followed by an outline of a few Australian C.E. examples. Given by Associate Professor Glen Corder, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland.