Nature Inspired Routes to Innovation in Reaction Engineering

There is an increasing need for chemical processes, power generation and molecular separations to be more energy and material efficient. Empirical and incremental design changes will not substantially address these requirements. We propose to turn to nature to inspire innovative solutions in process and material design, not only at the molecular scale, but all the way up to the macroscopic scales of chemical reactors and plants. For example, in fluid distribution and collection, catalysis, reaction engineering and membrane separations, biology provides us with excellent examples of scalability and efficiency. We will present innovative reaction engineering designs, inspired by these observations, and optimized using mathematical modeling and experimentation.