New centre for clean chemistry and engineering opens at Nottingham

Image courtesy of Nottingham University

The DICE Centre (Driving Innovation in Chemistry and Engineering) brings together researchers from both disciplines to develop sustainable technologies. The focus will be on devising environmentally processes for producing chemicals, more efficient use of energy, safer chemical products, and the use of renewable raw materials.

Martyn Poliakoff, one of the project leaders from the School of Chemistry, said, “Our mission is to challenge current thinking and be adventurous; to promote and encourage research of high risk and potentially high return.” DICE also aims to promote the chemical sciences and engineering as careers.

In the past, chemistry and chemical engineering have been divided in universities and there has been almost no interaction between the two disciplines. This needs to change, says Nick Miles, Head of the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, “Our aim is to lay the foundations for a new generation of chemical processing, underpinning the needs of the chemistry-using community forty years hence.”

Areas of research will include:

• New chemical reactions and catalysts
• New, renewable raw materials for use in chemical processes
• Safer chemical products
• Low or zero-waste processes
• New reactor concepts, including structured reactors, multi-functional reactors, across scales from micro to commercial plant
• Process analytics and control
• More efficient use of energy, eg. microwave technology and fuel cells
• More effective use of solvents, eg. alternative solvents such as supercritical fluids, ionic liquids and water.