IChemE’s goal is to help our members to engineer a sustainable world. To that end, we must show our members where and how they can use their skills to make a difference.
Our report, Engineering A Sustainable World – the Chemical Engineering Challenge, sets out which Sustainable Development Goals chemical engineers are best placed to help achieve. We identify the industry sectors, the enablers, and the cross-cutting issues that drive the change.
Our lineup of speakers at ChemUK 2025 will bring this vision to life, with examples of how chemical engineers are already shaping a sustainable future. We will discuss some of the digital tools they are using to make this change, and how the training for chemical engineers needs to adapt to ensure we have the right skills to drive this change.
IChemE technical topic 2: The Sustainability Challenge
The imperative to make production processes more efficient and sustainable is driving new innovation. IChemE’s case studies include a winner of the 2024 IChemE Awards and the Young Engineers Awards for Innovation and Sustainability.
Developing a future talent pool to engineer a sustainable world
- Speakers: Jo Cox, Head of young people’s and student engagement & Ian Stewart, Senior regional engagement manager
- Time: Thursday 22 May, 11 – 11.15
The growth of any industry is limited by the number and ability of young people entering the profession. Whilst there are many initiatives to promote chemical industry careers it is simply not enough to assume that knowledge and awareness is all that young people need. All established industry members have a role to play to help young people step up. In this session we will share IChemE’s vision of how this can be achieved.
Early Careers Contribution: Recycling plastics that no one else can
- Speaker: Brittany Emmett, Development Engineer with Plastic Energy
- Time: Thursday 22 May, 11:15 – 11:35
We recycle less plastic than one might think: currently only 9% of plastic waste is recycled, 50% is landfilled, and the rest is either incinerated or mismanaged. Plastic Energy hopes to change this – the company has patented a new recycling process that converts end-of-life plastic into feedstock that can replace fossil oils in the production of new plastics. Crucially, this process can recycle types of plastic waste that were difficult to recycle until now. The process is already used in two commercial-scale facilities in Spain and will also be used at chemical recycling plants under construction in Europe.
Case Study 1: Making carbon capture retrofits viable
- Speaker: Dr James Hendry, Research Associate, Newcastle University. Industry speaker TBC
- Time: Thursday 22 May, 11:35-11:55
- The project won both the Innovative Process and Industry Project Awards at the 2024 IChemE Global Awards
Carbon capture will be an important stepping stone on the path to net zero, allowing industry to reduce emissions while capacity for fully green processes is still being increased. However, retrofitting carbon capture to existing plant can be very challenging, not least because of the size of the required equipment. The Artemis Project, developed in partnership by Newcastle University, Carbon Clean, Altrad Babcock and Richard Alan Engineering, offers a way forward by a tenfold reduction in equipment-size in comparison to the conventional process while successfully capturing 90% of emissions from an industrial flue gas pilot plant producing 1 ton CO2/day. The project is now being commercialised as Carbon Clean’s CycloneCC unit.
Case Study 2: CircularChem: Defossilising the Chemical Industry
- Speaker: Jonathan Wagner, co-chair, Centre for Circular Chemical Economy
- Time: Thursday 22 May, 11:55 – 12:15
- Winner, IChemE Global Award for Sustainability, 2023
Unlike most other sectors, the chemical industry cannot be fully decarbonised as many chemicals contain carbon in their molecular structure. Instead, efforts should be focused on defossilising the chemical sector, through long-term carbon cycling and use of renewable feedstocks. CircularChem –
part of a £30 million strategic government investment that ran from January 2021 to March 2025 – explored alternative routes for transforming biomass, plastic waste and CO2 into sustainable circular feedstocks. Technology development was supported by whole system modelling to maximise resource efficiency and assess the environmental and economic potential of different processing routes. We engaged extensively with stakeholders from industry, policy, finance and the general public, to increase understanding and accelerate the implementation of circular technologies and practices.
Policy Roundtable Discussion: The UK’s Industrial Strategy
With the industrial strategy expected soon, what do we most want to see in the finished document? What will be needed to make it a success? And how does this fit with our aspirations on sustainability?
Participants
- Raffaella Ocone (Chair) – Professor of Chemical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University and Deputy President, Intuition of Chemical Engineers
- Lisa Craig – Director of Process, BakerHicks
- Duncan Lugton – Head of Policy and Impact, Institution of Chemical Engineers
- Gbemi Oluleye – Lecturer and Head of Market Interventions, Deep Decarbonisation Lab, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London.
Time: Thursday 22 May, 12:15 – 13:00
