For those of us who like 'Technology Foresight' exercises, the report on process intensification and the impact it could have upon our lives in the timeframe to 2050, edited by Andrzej Gorak and Andrzej Stankiewicz for the Dutch Institute of Sustainable Process Technology - www.ispt.nl - is worth studying. A full link to the extensive report of about 100 pages is given below.
Described as 'visionary project with a solid scientific basis', it follows on from the earlier study on PI that came out of The Netherlands some two or three years ago, that concentrated upon industrial processes that might be influenced by PI - a most useful document for those teaching PI to under- or post-graduate students.
The contents of the research agenda section of the main report, making up the bulk of the document, gives a flavour of what the readers can expect:
Section 1 - Efficient membrane technologies for a global clean water supply
Section 2 - Highly efficient distributed generation and high capacity energy storage
Section 3 - Low cost small scale processing technologies for production applications in varying environments
Section 4 - Recycling of composite materials: Design, engineering and intensified production technologies
Section 5 - Process intensification and fuel cells using a multisource multiproduct approach
Section 6 - Towards perfect reactors; Gaining full control of chemical transformations at the molecular level
Section 7 - Elemental sustainability: Towards the total recovery of scarce elements
Section 8 - Production systems for personalised medicine
Section 9 - Bio-hybrid organs and tissues for patient therapy
Section 10 - Towards better efficiency in food processing
Section 11 - Chemicals from biomass - integrated solution for chemistry and processing
Section 12 - Functioning devices for converting sunlight to fuels
Many of these areas are already the subject of R&D and readers world-wide will recognise subjects in which they may already be involved. Otherwise, the report may well stimulate some new activities.
