As part of AIChE's 110th Year Celebration, this series provides perspectives on the future of chemical engineering from dozens of leaders in industry, academia, and at national laboratories.
We continue with Vicky Lange, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at University College London. She conducts research on ionic liquids for actinide and lanthanide separations and on countercurrent chromatography. She earned her Bachelor’s degree (BASc) at the University of Toronto and her MSc and PhD from the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Prof. Barry Azzopardi and Prof. Pete Licence.
During AIChE’s centennial year of 2008, AIChE interviewed chemical engineers to learn their perspectives on the profession’s future. In today’s blog post, Dr. Lange presents her visions for chemical engineering post-2018.
Looking 25 years into the future, how do you expect your industry/research area to evolve?
History has shown that chemical engineering has always been able to quickly adapt to new inventions and technology. I believe that challenges such as energy supply and storage, scarcity of resources, and urbanization — which are already affecting our daily lives — will continue to force research activities to focus.
However, if we are to tackle these sustainability issues and fully embrace green technologies of the future, we will need to have an adequate supply of the rare earth metals that are required to build or create that technology. These metals will be the catalysts for future development of green energy production, and they will continue to be used in everything from electric motors to wind turbines.
I believe over the next 25 years one of the biggest game changers will be the widespread use of robotics engineering to efficiently disassemble and recycle electronic waste to recover scarce materials at sufficient volumes. This change will enable a recycled-materials market to be developed.
We know, however, that their supply is dwindling; moreover, geopolitical issues will continue to create major constraints in their mining and processing. Therefore, current mining operations will not be able to keep up with increasing demands, whilst our current recycling methods can only recover standard materials such as copper but not rare-earth metals.
I believe that in the next 25 years, better metal recycling routes and technology must be developed to satisfy the hunger for these precious metals. I am also convinced that greater emphasis will be placed on the development of suitable substitutes (other metals or synthetic substitutes).
Currently in the UK and Europe, research into recycling is gaining importance not only because industries in these regions rely heavily on technological minerals but also because these regions are resource-poor. Recently, the UK, in conjunction with the EU, launched its Critical Raw Material (CRM) Closed Loop Recovery project, which aims to increase CRM recycling by 5% by 2020.
Core areas of ChE expertise are being augmented by new expertise in science and engineering at molecular and nanometer scales, in biosystems, in sustainability, and in cyber-tools. Over the next 25 years, how will these changes affect your industry/research area?
There are several reasons why recycling of rare-earths is currently virtually non-existent. One of the main reasons is that in most electronic devices, these metals are used in such small quantities in several different components that available recycling procedures are not economically viable.
We cannot expect to use the same technology in 25 years; hence, chemical engineers need to be aware that their fields of expertise need to be extended constantly. I believe that the classical job description of chemical engineers will change in the next decade and job profiles will be extended.
I believe over the next 25 years one of the biggest game changers will be the widespread use of robotics engineering to efficiently disassemble and recycle electronic waste to recover scarce materials at sufficient volumes. This change will enable a recycled-materials market to be developed.
What new industries/research areas do you foresee?
I believe that automation in combination with artificial intelligence will be at the forefront soon. To give an example: The last decades established continuous processing in flow reactors not only for innovative processes and large-scale production, but also for process development and high-throughput analysis.
Combining the established tool box of flow chemistry with advanced process-analytical technologies and artificial intelligence could allow for completely automated process development in no time. Such techniques would not only boost chemical engineering but also fundamental research considerably.
Taking into account the ongoing evolution of the professions — including the need for new modes of education; high standards of performance and conduct; effective technical, business, and public communication; and desires for a more sustainable future — what do you think the chemical engineering profession will look like 25 years from now?
As products and technology advance, education in chemical engineering will tend towards incorporating a sound knowledge base on topics such as optimization algorithms, scientific computing, automation, and computer simulations.
I anticipate a shift in relevance of process engineering except for very specific chemical companies, as well as a greater emphasis on digital technology within the traditional chemical engineering framework. We cannot expect to use the same technology in 25 years; hence, chemical engineers need to be aware that their fields of expertise need to be extended constantly. I believe that the classical job description of chemical engineers will change in the next decade and job profiles will be extended.
AIChE's 110 Year Celebration
Celebrate AIChE's 110-year anniversary. Attend this Annual Meeting session, focusing on the future of chemical engineering through the eyes of thought leaders from industry, academia, and national laboratories.