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Pages 81-108

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From page 81...
... . Areas on which chemical engineers will focus in the future include the development of low-cost solid sorbents, highly CO2-selective materials that require reduced regeneration energy, materials that are highly active in ambient conditions, and processes with increased mass-transfer coefficient and high throughput and low pressure drop (NASEM, 2019b)
From page 82...
... . Specific challenges and opportunities for chemical engineers in the area of CO2 conversion to chemicals and fuels include the development of long-lasting and stable catalysts that can also work when the CO2 feed stream contains the impurities typically present in flue gases, low-temperature electrochemical conversion processes, enhanced conversion per pass and avoidance of carbonate formation, and lower energy requirements for the anode in the electrochemical reduction of CO2.
From page 83...
... Challenges and opportunities for chemical engineers in this area include bioreactor and cultivation optimization, analytical and monitoring tools, genome-scale modeling and improvement of metabolic efficiency, bioprospecting, valorization of coproducts, genetic tools, and pathways to new products. Biological Conversion of CH4 Methanotrophs can use methane as their carbon and energy source.
From page 84...
... While natural gas is a cleaner bridge fuel compared with other fossil fuels, innovations are still needed throughout the value chain. Chemical engineers can enable advances that will minimize or replace water use as a fracturing agent, improve storage and transportation, and better integrate natural gas with renewable energy sources.
From page 85...
... For intermittent energy sources, chemical engineers can contribute to the development of advanced materials that can increase the viability of wind and marine energy. Chemical engineering research will also be critical to advancing low-carbon fuels; improving petroleum refining; advancing clean hydrogen production; and developing improved synthetic fuels for sectors, such as aviation, that are difficult to decarbonize.
From page 86...
... 86 New Directions for Chemical Engineering systems; and developing cost-effective and secure carbon capture, use, and storage methods. Recommendation 3-2: Researchers in academic and government laboratories and industry practitioners should form interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaborations focused on pilot- and demonstration-scale projects and modeling and analysis for lowcarbon energy technologies.
From page 87...
... After a discussion of the WEF nexus, scientific gaps in understanding of the fundamental properties of water, as well as the need for engineering solutions for water quality and supply, are reviewed. Opportunities for chemical engineers to both pioneer and contribute to multidisciplinary efforts to advance agricultural and food processing technologies are then described, followed by a discussion of the research needs for understanding and improving air quality.
From page 88...
... Additionally, chemical engineers' knowledge of biochemical engineering and its applications to agriculture, and of separations with applications to water and air pollution, as well as their systemslevel understanding, is critical to solving global problems. Fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, and coal)
From page 89...
... . This integrated management approach is at the core of the capabilities and focus of chemical engineers, from the chemical to the system scale, with respect to reducing demand (conservation)
From page 90...
... frames integrated solutions for the WEF nexus around six pillars:  optimizing the freshwater efficiency of energy production, electricity gener ation, and end-use systems;  optimizing the energy efficiency of water management, treatment, distribu tion, and end-use systems;  enhancing the reliability and resilience of energy and water systems;  increasing safe and productive use of nontraditional water sources;  promoting responsible energy operations with respect to water quality, eco system, and seismic impacts; and  exploiting productive synergies among water and energy systems. FIGURE 4-2 The water–energy–food nexus emphasizes the interconnectivity of these three major resources.
From page 91...
... . Chemical engineers can lead and contribute to advances in the many technology vectors required within each of these pillars.
From page 92...
... to reduce the water demand for electricity generation (DOE, 2014; IChemE, 2015)
From page 93...
... While chemical engineering's role in the energy sector is discussed in Chapter 3, the ties among food, water, air, the environment, and energy are apparent and are key to the future of both the discipline and society writ large. MOLECULAR SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING OF WATER SOLUTIONS Chemical engineers have a leading role in molecular science and engineering that requires a fundamental understanding of water structure, dynamics, and interactions, as well as in the development of new complex separation processes.
From page 94...
... Opportunities to improve the overall energy efficiency of a seawater RO plant involve energy and wasteheat management as much, if not more, than the development of new membrane materials or processes. Many RO plants are located in regions where renewable power sources (wind or solar)
From page 95...
... The development of technology for cost-effective treatment of this water, particularly on site, presents a substantial opportunity for chemical engineers. Similar challenges continue to exist in, for example, managing the water produced during coal and other mining; the iron-ore treatment in the taconite process; and multicomponent radioactive liquid wastes such as those at the Hanford, Washington, nuclear reactor site (where 45 years of operation resulted in an estimated 440 billion gallons of wastewater [Washington State Department of Ecology, 2021]
From page 96...
... This is a rich field for chemical engineers with an interest in transport, catalytic and reaction chemistry, thermodynamics, self-assembly, and materials science. To make an impact on real-world applications, research in this area needs to focus on the factors that typically limit existing technology solutions (e.g., biofouling, durability, cost)
From page 97...
... . The development of treatment technologies for these persistent chemicals is a major opportunity for chemical engineers.
From page 98...
... Removal of microplastics from water and other media presents opportunities for chemical engineers. Removal methods include physical sorption and filtration, biological removal and ingestion, and chemical treatments (Iyare et al., 2020; Padervand et al., 2020)
From page 99...
... Similarly, whether ions, for example, are depleted or concentrated at the air–water interface is of considerable importance in the development of new water-purification technologies or of water transport models for agriculture or climate prediction. Chemical engineers, primarily in academia, are heavily involved in experimental and theoretical studies of water both with and without other additives.
From page 100...
... . those upgrades, new methods are providing an unprecedented view into the structure of water in a wide range of scenarios, including as ultrathin films or in samples undergoing unusual phase transitions (Byrne et al., 2021)
From page 101...
... The discovery of LDA ice formed by vapor deposition has inspired the creation by chemists and chemical engineers of other classes of emerging engineering materials, such as ultrastable vapor-deposited glasses, which offer unusual mechanical characteristics and important advantages for applications in electronics, such as organic light-emitting diodes and polymorphic metallic films that respond to light. Structure of Water at Interfaces Considerable progress has also been made in understanding the structure of water in inhomogeneous environments -- for example, water at interfaces and under extreme confinement.
From page 102...
... Recent approaches involving various combinations of advanced sampling concepts from statistical mechanics, quantum mechanical calculations of intermolecular interactions, and emerging concepts from machine learning offer considerable promise for reducing the description of water and aqueous solutions and their interfaces to a tractable problem. As chemical engineers strive to conceive and design chemical processes involving aqueous interfaces, it will be important for such predictive models to be developed and brought to bear on the design and optimization of modern water-based technologies.
From page 103...
... . Fast transport of gases in nanopores had been anticipated on the basis of simulations by chemical engineers (Skoulidas et al., 2002)
From page 104...
... Innovative strides in agriculture in the 20th century, many of which were enabled by chemical engineers or researchers working in what would ultimately become the chemical engineering discipline, allowed substantial improvements in food yields per land area, the ability to efficiently prolong the life of foods, and the ability to deliver food to consumers over long distances. These innovations are exemplified by the development and scale-up of the Haber–Bosch process for ammonia production, which rivals global biological nitrogen fixation in magnitude (Galloway et al., 2008)
From page 105...
... technology may ultimately enable precise genomic editing without being considered genetic modification, representing a major boon for application in food crops. The use of genome-wide association studies, especially in the broad gene pools that exist in undomesticated crops, and translation to domesticated food crops present an opportunity to apply computational approaches common to chemical engineering curricula in concert with analysis-driven research.
From page 106...
... do not include nonfood products in their estimate of $13.6 billion metric tons of CO2e. This may explain some of the difference.
From page 107...
... or enable direct production of power is an area ripe for immediate contributions from chemical engineers. The above discussion includes but a sampling of ways to improve modern agricultural practices in which chemical engineers can play pivotal roles.
From page 108...
... As discussed in the section on feedstock flexibility in Chapter 6, the use of waste-based feedstocks for valuable products, especially for food production enabled by biological and catalytic transformations pioneered by the chemical engineering community, offers a clear path toward a more circular carbon and nitrogen economy that is more sustainable than today's agricultural practices, and chemical engineers will play a critical role in this much-needed transition. Food Engineering and Processing and Storage Supplying the world's population with food that is nutritious, affordable, and sustainable is a global challenge.


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