Plants-to-fuel project wins IChemE design prize

Engineering students from Imperial College London have won the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) 2015 Macnab-Lacey Student Design Prize, awarded annually to the student design project that best shows how the principles of chemical engineering practice can contribute to a more sustainable world.

The team of nine, mentored by Dr Denis Dugwell from Imperial’s Department for Chemical Engineering, won the award for their design of a biomass-to-liquid conversion plant. The plant would collect solid waste from municipalities, reprocess the waste to obtain useful syngas (a combination of CO and H₂) and use a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactor to convert the syngas into useful liquid fuels.

“We wanted to consider the wider implications that a biomass-to-liquid plant would have on society if commissioned,” the team explained. “It was an intimidating and challenging task initially, but we quickly learnt how important it is to create a conducive environment and work together in a fun and productive way.”

IChemE’s Sustainability Special Interest Group, which administers and judges the medal, was impressed by the team’s strong analysis of alternative processes and use of sustainability principles throughout. The chair of the group, Malcolm Wilkinson, said, “The principles were evident across the entire project — in the team’s choice of gasifier, their reactor designs and in their life cycle analysis, which highlighted areas for improvement.”

The concept was praised for tackling a real-world issue of a possible fuel crisis, as well as the need to reduce CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere. Additionally, the plant design was said to outperform the benchmark process of the IChemE on various environmental and economic parameters.

Other competition entrants included a team from Australia’s own Monash University, for a project on the production of furfural from biogas; and from the University of Sydney, for a coal seam gas freeze crystallisation pilot plant.

Image caption: The winning team from Imperial College London.