AIChE Credential for Sustainability Professionals The AIChE Institute for Sustainability (IfS) is launching a program that offers engineers and other qualified professionals a specialized Credential in sustainability. The IfS is well positioned to establish a baseline definition of what Sustainability entails, as well as to establish a Body of Knowledge (BOK) in the field of sustainability.
Institute for Sustainability (IfS) IfS is an umbrella organization encompassing a broad spectrum of activities related to sustainability. It has three sub-entities: the Sustainable Engineering Forum (SEF), the Center for Sustainable Technology Practices (CSTP), and the Youth Council on Sustainability Science and Technology (YCOSST). It also provides oversight to the AIChE Sustainability Index (sm).
Environmental Division (ENV) The ENV division provides relevant programs on current environmental topics and non-confidential information concerning all aspects of environmental activity. The division promotes publication of papers of interest to chemical engineers in environmental activities as well as coordinates the Institute’s activities with other related societies.
World's Largest Iron-Chromium Flow Battery Starts Up in California July 22, 2014Users and competitors watch anxiously as flow batteries convert chemical energy into electricity by pumping electrolytes through EnerVault's Engineered Cascades Technology.
AIChE Journal Articles Make Wiley's Top 20 List March 25, 2015Articles from the AIChE Journal, Biotechnology Progress, Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy, and Process Safety Progress are at the top of the list of "hottest...
Apple to Bring SunPower's C7 Solar Technology to China October 27, 2015Last April Apple announced that all of its US facilities, and 87 percent of its worldwide operations, were completely powered by renewable energy, which showed that Apple was...
My Neighborhood Radioactive Waste Dump February 22, 2016Like so many of us, I jog through my neighborhood in pursuit of 10,000 steps a day. My urban journey through Queens, NY, is a slow blur of delis, liquor marts, and grocery stores...
Engineers Harness Low-Temperature Industrial Waste Heat June 28, 2016Low-temperature wasted heat is generally seen as an unusable byproduct of manufacturing and power generation, but researchers at Yale’s Department of Chemical and Environmental...
World's Largest Wind Farm Begins Operation September 27, 2010Thanet's turbines While Cape Wind , the nation's only planned off-shore wind farm , struggles to start construction, Thanet Wind Farm , located seven miles off the blustery coast...
ICOSSE 2011: Yosef Manik of the University of Maine Assesses the Sustainability of Bio-product Supply Chains February 2, 2011Yosef Manik is a Fulbright Ph.D. student from Indonesia whose primary area of study is forest resources. He assisted Anthony Halog in researching frameworks and models for...
Toilet to Tap: The Future of Water June 2, 2011Singapore used to depend heavily on Malaysia for treated water, but now it uses state-of-the-art technology to recycle sewage and other wastewater, producing water that is claimed...
Annual Meeting Showcases Green Building in Minnesota October 23, 2011On Wednesday, October 19, the US Green Building Council's (USGBC) Minnesota Chapter (USGBC-MN) held its own Annual Meeting designed to celebrate the previous year's...
Extra Optimism for Earth Day 2012 April 19, 2012This Sunday the world will celebrate Earth Day once again, but if thoughts of the Earth's future cause you more pessimism than hope, then the new book Abundance may be exactly...
AIChE Greens the Annual Meeting September 17, 2012This year's AIChE Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh should prove to be the greenest yet! Read more about what we're doing and how you can be a part of making the meeting more...
Jeff Surma Wants to Electrify Municipal Waste February 18, 2013Jeff Surma, a chemical engineer by training and now something of an energy visionary, has not only proven that InEnTec, his small startup, can profitably vaporize garbage by...
High-Efficiency Carbon-Capture Launching at Coal-Fired Plant September 30, 2013New high-efficiency carbon capture begins long-term trial at Nebraska coal-fired power plant.
Herb Cabezas on Analysis Techniques for Energy-Water-Food Nexus November 25, 2014Herb Cabezas, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), presented approaches for analysis of complex systems such as the energy-water-food nexus at the AIChE's World Café during...
Alt-Air's Bio-Jet Fuel to Power United's Planes This Summer July 10, 2015Oil may be playing nice for now as it calmly toys with $50 a barrel, but airline executives who watched manic prices spike above $100 for several years won't stop looking for a...
Masdar Launches Solar Desalination Pilot Program December 11, 2015Last month in the United Arab Emirates, Veolia Water Technologies and three other companies that have built some of the most advanced desalination technology in the world began...
New Recyclable Bioplastic Outperforms ABS March 28, 2016Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have devised a new plastic that is made with 50 percent renewable content from biomass. The new...
Textiles Created from Cow Dung July 28, 2016Jalila Essaïdi considers herself an artist, but this young Dutch artist has a very scientific side, relying heavily on biotechnology to create work that often focus on nature, the...
How Do Chemical Engineers Recognize Earth Day? April 22, 2010It was 40 years ago that U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day as an environmental teach-in. It continues to be celebrated on April 22 in the Northern Hemisphere and in...
Lufthansa's First Scheduled Passenger Biofuel Flight a Milestone for 2nd-Generation Biofuels December 9, 2010Commercial aviation just reached an important milestone. Germany's Lufthansa Airlines has announced they will begin using a biofuel blend for regularly scheduled passenger service...
Life Cycle Assessment Tools for Algal Biofuels [On Location] March 21, 2011Edward Frank, of Argonne National Laboratory discussed his group’s efforts to create the evaluation tools necessary to perform that analysis for algae derived biofuels, be they...
Interview with Director/Producer Rachel Cook on the Microlending Film Project September 8, 2011When Rachel Cook read Nicholas Kristof's article on Saving the World's Women in 2009, the then 25-year old futures trader in Chicago was immediately compelled to use her education...
The Future of Glass November 8, 2011The engineers and scientists at Corning envision a brilliant future with extraordinary uses for glass, and some may surprise you. Check out the video at right and read the...
Is Safe, Clean Fracking Possible? June 5, 2012The good news is that, yes, fracking can be made safe and clean, according to a new analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA). But the down side is that it probably will...
Interview with Frank Bates on Multiblock Polymers November 9, 2012Before delivering the 64th Institute Lecture, Frank Bates sat down with ChEnected to discuss his talk titled "Multiblock Polymers: Panacea or Pandora's Box?"
ICOSSE 2013 June 3, 2013Join AIChE in Cincinnati for ICOSSE 2013, where we will look at new ways to protect the environment and achieve sustainable development.
Phase Change Ionic Liquids for CO2 Capture [On Location] December 5, 2013The use of ionic liquids that change phase in the presence of CO2 offers the possibility of a novel CO2 capture process that is more energy efficient than current aqueous amine...
Smallest Canary Island Takes Over as World's Renewable Energy Champ June 19, 2014El Hierro, the smallest of Spain's Canary Islands, will generate all of its own power from an innovative, hybrid water and wind power plant.
Artificial Glaciers Save and Store Water in Northern India February 27, 2015Manmade ice melts in Ladakh, India, provide necessary water in spring so farmers can once again plant their crops without waiting for summer rains.
Engineers Extract Rare-Earth Elements from Junked Cars October 5, 2015Rare earth elements have a wide variety of applications, such as various electronics equipment and wind turbines, but the issue is their, well, rarity (which we’ve written about...
US Navy Green Fleet Makes Biofuels the New Normal January 29, 2016The US Navy's biofuel program has just launched a great success with the Great Green Fleet, which is fueled with a drop-in blend of biofuel from beef tallow and petroleum-based...
The Future Grid Is Here: Nissan Begins Vehicle-to-Grid Storage Trial June 1, 2016Nissan's test in the UK aims to show how cars may one day be an integral part of the grid.
Partners LanzaTech and Virgin Atlantic Make Jet Fuel from Waste Gases September 21, 2016Low carbon jet fuel just got a big boost. Skokie, Illinois-based LanzaTech just announced it made 1,500 gallons of synthetic paraffinic kerosene, a non-fossil-based jet fuel ...
Stretching Our Most Limited Resource August 26, 2010Summer Water Fun... How Long Will it Last? As the summer winds down, how did you enjoy the season? Maybe a trip to the beach for a swim, a run through the sprinkler, or maybe just...
Audi Showcases Electric Sports Car January 18, 2011If you think that an electric car has to be practical looking or isn't any fun, take a look at the Audi R8 e-tron . There's little about this car that's nerdy. Of course, this car...
Intel Employees Grow Algae By Harnessing their Arizona Chip Fab's Carbon Dioxide April 27, 2011Intel's on an roll. Just in time for Earth Day, their huge, Arizona chip fab was the first semiconductor manufacturing company to receive LEED certification for its entire campus...
How Hungry Microbes Cleaned Up the Gulf Oil Spill January 23, 2012Professors David Valentine and Igor Mezic have developed a new computer model that demonstrates the roles of underwater topography, currents and bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico led...
Reformulated Diesel Means Cleaner Ship Emissions August 29, 2012A new fuel mixture has been developed to cut air pollution from cruise ships, oil tankers, and container ships burning traditional bunker oil, the cheapest and most highly...
Data Reveals First Civilian All-Biofuel Flight Was a Success January 24, 2013The results on the first all-civilian biofuel flight are in: a 50% reduction in aerosol emissions compared to jet fuel, and a significant drop in black carbon emissions, with 1.5...
Help Fund Sustainability Think Tank February 14, 2014Earthshift has launched the Start Some Good campaign to raise money to create a comprehensive methodology for companies to use when making decisions related to sustainability.
New Device Harvests Movement to Generate Energy September 4, 2014A new small device that relies on nanotechnology successfully generates electric current from simple vibrations. Its creators look to relieve the load on batteries or eliminate...
At UCSD Algae Oil Invades a Petro-niche: Surfboard Production June 4, 2015Stephen Mayfield, a professor of biology and a geneticist at UC San Diego, has spent his career researching algae. As the director of the California Center for Algae Biotechnology...
Texas Is Giving Away Wind Energy November 30, 2015Wind power is now so cheap in Texas that many energy retailers offer special deals that include free electricity at night after demand drops and the turbines are still pumping out...
Chinese Grid Officials Explode the Myth of Baseload Power at CERAWeek March 11, 2016Many utilities think that wind and solar PV can only provide a small percentage of power without undermining grid stability. But Amory Lovins, the founder of the Rocky Mountain...
Deepwater Wind to Install First US Offshore Wind July 15, 2016Developer Deepwater Wind is on the verge of launching the first offshore wind farm in the US. Later this fall, w hen its five turbines finally power up off the coast of Rhode...
The Sustainability Discipline March 10, 2010For a chemical engineer, I spend a lot of time with architects. I enjoy acquainting myself with people from different backgrounds who can provide a refreshing look to my own...
Professor Roland Clift on Industrial Ecology and Sustainability November 8, 2010Roland Clift is a distinguished Professor of Environmental Technology at University of Surrey - Guildford, the Founding Director of the Centre for Environmental Strategy (D3), and...
Bringing Value to Waste through Gas Fermentation [On Location] March 16, 2011As the world faces increasing energy challenges, one of the holy grails is a way to use waste carbon gasses to create new fuels or other high-value products. The ability to...
The Concorde Is Gone, but Supersonic Travel Is on Its Way Back June 23, 2011Longing for the days of glamorous supersonic travel aboard the Concorde but can't quite reconcile the need for speed with your greener side? The European firm EADS, maker of the...
Making Biofuels at 10 Times the Normal Speed of Science August 17, 2011The biomass used to produce biofuel is most easily converted to ethanol, but that has always come with trade-offs. The primary problem: ethanol is less energy dense than petroleum...
Moringa Oleifera Seeds for Water Treatment in Water-Stressed Areas October 31, 2011The challenge of improving water quality in water-stressed areas of the world may have a natural champion in the Moringa oleifera tree. More specifically, a particular protein...
Closing Energy and Material Balances in Food Production May 17, 2012The hotel I am staying at in Thailand started a hydroponic garden, turning a previously unused area into productive one. While being "green" is among their objectives, this...
The New Energy Mix: Abundance and Sustainability? October 17, 2012The US’s surge in production of natural gas is by methods that are spreading around the world. As oil begins to be abundant, too, can we have the benefits and still move toward...
Rotating Algal Biofilm Reactor [On Location] November 11, 2013A new approach to address the problems of the large land area required for cultivation, culture contamination and the difficult and costly dewatering of the harvested cells in...
Bringing Biotech Savvy to Big League Oil-Enhanced Recovery May 14, 2014Glori Energy's AERO System improves water-flooded well production by pumping nutrients to native but dormant microbes. They grow, knocking loose stranded crude.
January 2015 CEP Preview January 15, 2015Special Section: Sustainability Sustainability Trends in the Chemical Industry The AIChE Sustainability Index provides benchmarks of a company’s performance on a variety of...
Tapping Infrared to Improve Solar Cell Efficiency August 6, 2015Residential solar installers are desperately waiting for photovoltaic (PV) efficiency upgrades so they can pump out more juice per square foot for price-sensitive consumers...
Why the US Fracking Boom Took Off and China's Sputtered January 6, 2016China has discovered that it isn't easy to duplicate a shale boom fueled by a special cadre of small, wildcatting oil and gas exploration companies.
First Solar Back from the Brink and Cheaper than China April 22, 2016Last month First Solar announced that it set a new record in its research lab for cadmium-telluride cell efficiency, at 22.1 percent.
Michael Liebreich Says Electric Vehicles Are a Global Revolution Sitting in Your Garage August 30, 2016Michael Liebreich, the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, has tracked surging global renewable energy investments for over a decade. After finally connecting the dots, he's...
Expanding the Application of Nuclear Power and Closing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle July 9, 2010Reactor vessel in Ringhals nuclear power plant In March 1979, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers published a policy statement in Chemical Engineering Progress supporting...
10 Front-runners in Water-Related Research January 4, 2011Is turning waste and inefficiency into profit and opportunity too much to wish for? Not if you're one of finalists competing for the Imagine H2O Prize. The competition will award...
Celebrate Earth Day With a 100-Year-Old Belgian Tree and Its 4730 Facebook Friends April 22, 2011Get back to nature and celebrate Earth Day by communing with this stately, century-old tree living in the heart of Brussels. EOS , a Belgian science and nature magazine, has given...
2011 Annual Meeting Environmental Division Service Project September 23, 2011Join fellow AIChE members for a fun service project at the host city for this year's annual meeting! The first 40 individuals to RSVP at the provided link will meet at Mill Ruins...
Solar Update: New Solar Plane, Warren Buffet Invests in Solar, Apple Eying Solar Power December 12, 2011Solar energy appears hotter than ever as plans are made for a new solar-powered aircraft and as giants including Warren Buffet and Apple invest in solar power. Read on for an...
Feeding the Planet: A Global Crisis in Agriculture July 19, 2012Jonathan Foley shows how agriculture and land use may be the biggest challenge to the global environment. He looks at how these issues could grow even larger as we look to feed...
ARPA-E Gifts $130 Million to Cutting-Edge Energy Ideas December 17, 2012An early Christmas came to energy startups when The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) announced that 66 new projects will receive $130 million. This latest...
Anaerobic Digester Rounds out Waste Management's Energy Portfolio January 2, 2014Harvest Power recently launched its Energy Garden in British Columbia, which is the largest commercial-scale high solids anaerobic digester in North America.
Starting Up the World’s First Retrofitted Carbon Capture Coal Plant July 24, 2014When SaskPower's carbon capture plant is fully operational, it will capture 1 million tons of CO2 a year – about 95% - and have a 110 MW-generating capacity.
Greener Use of Fossil Fuels: Lithium from Coal March 27, 2015Geologists from the Hebei University of Engineering in Handan, China have devised a plan to extract the lithium previously discovered in coal deposits in the northern part of the...
Solar Micro-grids for India's Rural Poor October 30, 2015Elon Musk thinks a lithium-ion battery is the best buy for stationary storage on a micro-grid, but SunEdison execs don't buy it.
Opportunities for Young Professionals in the Environmental Division February 23, 2016Learn more about what the AIChE Environmental Division offers and how you can get involved.
World Nears Peak Fossil Fuels for Electricity, According to Bloomberg June 30, 2016If the renewables tsunami starting to slam into the traditional energy business feels like it's growing larger, there's a perfectly logical reason. As the world’s longest offshore...
One Empty, Yellow, (Belgian) Beer Crate x 30,000 = A Deeper Moment of Ecological Awareness October 7, 2010View from floor below Taking 33,000 empty yellow beer crates, each an identical piece of urban background noise, Belgian Architectural firm SHSH slotted them together like stone...
ICOSSE 2011: Daniela Stebbins Recounts Her Travels to Haiti and the How to Improve Water Quality with the Use of Cactus Mucilage February 3, 2011Daniela Miranda de Lima Stebbins is a post-doc who traveled to Haiti to study how cactus mucilage can be extracted and used to improve the quality of potable water that has been...
Penn State Researchers Have a Simple, New Process to Cleanly Extract Oil From Tar Sands June 3, 2011The United States imports approximately one million barrels of oil per day from Canada, about twice the amount from Saudi Arabia . Much of that oil ( bitumen ) comes from Alberta...
Termites: Homeowner Scourge or Biofuel Savior? July 18, 2011An unwanted house pest and suburban scourge, suddenly the termite has been accidentally and disasterously rehabilitated by science. Hyperbole? Termite control professionals don't...
First Woman Awarded the Lawrence K. Cecil Award for Environmental Chemical Engineering October 25, 2011Urmila Diwekar, president and founder of the Vishwamitra Research Institute , is the 2011 recipient of the Lawrence K. Cecil Award for Environmental Chemical Engineering ,...
Sustainability of Cellulosic Ethanol Processes [On Location] April 20, 2012Dr. Eric C. D. Tan of NREL presented the current state-of-technology (SOT) sustainability assessments for two conversion platforms: biochemical and thermochemical biomass...
Water From the Sun: Off-Grid Freshwater for World's Poor September 27, 2012Deserts get little or no rainfall, but often there are aquifers deep below the surface that hold rivers of salty water. The problem: economically getting the salt out of this...