Date: September 12, 2016

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.

Location: Maeder Hall

Alexander Mitsos, a professor at RWTH Aachen University, will give a talk entitled “(Chemical) Process Industry: An Enabler for Renewable Energy?” as part of the 2016-2017 Highlight Seminar series at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

ABSTRACT
Central governments, in particular Germany, have decided to convert the energy system to one based on renewable energy sources and eliminate nuclear power and fossil fuels. This results in a number of challenges, in particular economic cost of installing renewable technologies and that renewable energy sources are intermittent and do not always match energy demand. Traditionally the (chemical) process industry has been relying on readily available and relatively cheap energy sources and feedstocks based on fossil fuels. Thus, currently this industry adds to the energy and power crisis. In this talk we show how the industry can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. In particular we discuss three options, namely demand-side management (DSM), new process routes that convert intermittent energy to easily storable products (power-to-X) and closed loop energy storage systems based on liquid chemicals. We discuss challenges in optimal design and operation, how these can be overcome and what is needed in methods and algorithms development.

BIO
Alexander Mitsos is a Full Professor (W3) in RWTH Aachen University, and the Director of the Laboratory for Process Systems Engineering (AVT.SVT), comprising 40 research and administrative staff. Professor Mitsos received his Dipl-Ing from University of Karlsruhe in 1999 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 2006, both in Chemical Engineering. Prior appointments include military service, free-lance engineering, involvement in a start-up company, a junior research group leader position in the Aachen Institute of Computational Engineering Science and the Rockwell International Assistant Professorship at MIT. Professor Mitsos has over 70 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has received a number of awards. His research focuses on optimization of energy and chemical systems and development of enabling numerical algorithms.

All seminars are held on Mondays (unless otherwise noted) from 4 to 5:15 p.m. in the Andlinger Center’s Maeder Hall. A reception will be provided in the lobby of Maeder Hall immediately following the seminar.