May 2023
Operating safely within the Earth’s ecological capacity is a major challenge facing us today. In this lecture, I will talk about the emerging field of sustainable Process Systems Engineering, which applies systems thinking, mathematical programming and life cycle assessment (LCA) in the optimization of sustainable processes. I will start by motivating the need to transition towards more sustainable chemicals and fuels, formally stating the problem of interest and reviewing the main mathematical methods available for minimizing the environmental impact of industrial processes. I will then focus on the integration of multi-objective optimization and LCA, describing some recent applications in supply chain management, process design and energy systems. I will finally discuss how to incorporate absolute sustainability criteria in the assessment and optimization of industrial systems, focusing on the planetary boundaries concept.
Dr. Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez completed his M.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from Universidad de Murcia (Spain), and his Ph.D. in Process Systems Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain), working afterward as Fulbright Scholar at Carnegie Mellon University (US). He then joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) in 2008, before moving to The University of Manchester (UK) in 2014 and to Imperial College London (UK) in 2016. Since February 2019, he works as Professor in Chemical Systems Engineering in the Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering of ETH Zürich (Switzerland).
Dr. Guillén-Gosálbez’s research interests focus on the simultaneous optimization of the environmental and economic performance of process industries. He currently sits on the Editorial Boards of the journals Sustainable Production and Consumption and Helvetica, and participates in the steering committee of the NCCR Catalysis National Centre of Competence in Research and in the EU panel on Safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials. He has received several awards, including the Top Doctoral Student Award (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain), the Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, and the Young Investigator Award of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering.