Vagelos Institute Lecture in Energy Science and Technology: Dr. Gregg Beckham

Date and time Thursday, February 13, 2025 4:00 - 5:00 PM EDT; reception to follow   Location Vagelos Laboratory for Energy Science and Technology Room 121 3200 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104   Title: Analysis-guided technology development for plastics recycling and redesign   Abstract: The global plastics waste crisis has catalyzed the rapid development and deployment of new technologies that are aimed at enabling circular materials flows for plastics. This talk will cover our collective efforts in the US Department of Energy-funded BOTTLE Consortium (www.bottle.org), where we use analysis-guided research to both enable circularity for today’s hard-to-recycle plastics and redesign tomorrow’s plastics to be both bio-based and inherently circular. Specifically, this talk will highlight BOTTLE’s approach to analysis, where process modeling, techno-economic analysis, life cycle assessment, and environmental justice metrics can be used to prioritize innovation and compare new approaches to incumbent, linear plastics manufacturing and use. Several recent examples from plastics recycling and redesign will be presented that showcase how these analysis tools can guide innovations that address some of the most relevant technical challenges for accelerating plastics recycling and redesign technologies.   

Gregg T. Beckham is a Group Leader and Senior Research Fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering at MIT in 2007. He currently leads and works with an interdisciplinary team of biologists, chemists, and engineers at NREL on conversion of biomass to fuels, plastics upcycling, chemicals and materials included in metabolic engineering, catalysts, fermentation, separations, biopolymer and carbon fiber production, theory and simulation to design biological and chemical catalysts, and lignin and waste valorization. Education Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology M.S., Chemical Engineering Practice, Massachusetts Institute of Technology B.S., Chemical Engineering, Oklahoma State University Professional Experience Group Leader and Senior Research Fellow, NREL (2018–present) Affiliate Faculty, Colorado State University (2019–present) Fellow, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder and NREL (2016–present) Group Leader and Senior Engineer, NREL (2011–2018) Engineer, NREL (2008–2011) Senior Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering (2007) Station Director, Singapore-MIT Alliance, National University of Singapore (2005)