"The future of sustainable resources"

Every year, tons of biomass side streams go to waste, but what if we could turn them into valuable materials instead? In this talk, I’ll show how we use green and sustainable processes to upcycle agricultural and food by-products into bioplastics, bioactive compounds, and next-generation packaging—closing the loop on waste and unlocking new possibilities for a circular economy.

Water splitting for hydrogen production is a promising method for generating a fuel free of greenhouse gas emissions. However, storage of H2 is challenging due to its gaseous state at room temperature, requiring either very high pressures for storage, or extremely low temperatures for liquefaction. An alternative to direct hydrogen storage is to use it in the catalytic conversion of CO2 to produce fuels like methanol (CH3OH). This process requires chemical reactions involving carbon-based reactants and hydrogen. Ironically, most of the current methanol production in the world relies on fossil fuels, begging the question, Are methanol synthesis and the 'hydrogen economy' substitutes for fossil fuels? Here, this question is addressed and the conditions required for sustainable methanol production with net-zero carbon emissions are discussed.