This award is being co-funded by the Office of International and Integrated Activities. The primary objective of this workshop on Supercritical Fluids and Energy is to create a unique opportunity to (1) Review the state of Supercritical Fluid Science and Technology to assess its future potential utilizations and impact in various areas pertaining to energy; (2) Assess the bottlenecks that are hindering advances towards large scale implementations and help develop recommendations to facilitate transformation from laboratory to industrial practice; (3) Identify future research needs and promote international collaborative research efforts; (4) and Create a platform to directly engage future generation of researchers, and give them the opportunity to interact closely with the current leaders in the field and build their international networking.
The workshop intends to bring about 25-30 leading experts as panel members who will provide sound and informed perspectives on the future directions and the role Supercritical Fluids Science and Technology can play in several key areas on energy. These will include: (a) Conversion of biomass to fuels and development of bio-refineries; (b) Supercritical fluids as working fluids in power generation and refrigeration cycles; (c) Supercritical fluids in the development or in processing of materials that impact energy efficiency such as porous insulation materials with low thermal conductivity, or membranes for fuel cells; and (d) Supercritical fluids as benign solvents for green chemistry and for sustainable technologies such as waste minimization, carbon capture and storage.
The workshop also intends to bring about 50 - 60 young scientists to this workshop who may become the future leaders. The workshop will form a nucleus for new collaborative efforts and possible multi-national research initiatives. The workshop will be co-chaired by Erdogan Kiran (Virginia Tech, USA) and Angela Meireles (University of Campinas, Brazil). The workshop will be held at the University of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Brazil is leading in its activity in bio-based alternative fuels, and as such is a natural location to address the central topic of Energy. Dr. Flavio C. Albuquerque from PETROBRAS, Brazil will be serving as an industrial representative in the local organizing committee. Brazil is also very active in the area of processing of bio-based materials using supercritical fluids, and will provide the platform to look at the limitations in transforming bench-top research findings to industrial implementation.
The Workshop on Supercritical Fluids and Energy was held in Campinas, Brazil during December 8-11, 2013. The primary objectives of this 3-day workshop were to (a) review the state of the Supercritical Fluid Science and Technology to assess its future potential utilization and its the impact in various areas pertaining to energy; (b) assess the bottlenecks that are hindering advances towards large scale implementations and help develop recommendations to facilitate transformation from laboratory to industrial practice; (c) identify future research needs and promote international collaborative research efforts; and (d) create a platform to directly engage future generation of researchers, and give them the opportunity to interact closely with the current leaders in the field and build their international networking. The workshop brought together 99 researchers from 19 countries. The participants included 52 senior scientists, 14 junior faculty members, 12 postdoctoral fellows and 20 doctoral students. The first day of the workshop was devoted to overview/keynote lectures that provided focused reviews on the state of the Supercritical Fluid Science and Technology. The second day was devoted to parallel-run Panel Sessions as well as Poster presentations devoted to the topical areas of (a) bio-based fuel processes, (b) new materials and materials processing, (c) green chemistry and sustainable technology, (d) supercritical fluids as working fluids, and (e) process technology and future directions. The third day was devoted to further discussions of the Panel findings. Each Panel voiced the need for (1) improved understanding and modeling of systems with complexity, especially those involving multi-component, or "real-life" mixtures; (2) more experimental data on high pressure phase behavior, thermophysical properties; (3) new experimental tools and in-situ characterization methods; (4) improved interactions between academics and industry to link the fundamentals with applications and identify commercially viable attractive processes; (5) establishment of interdisciplinary groups to define new areas of interest or function as working groups to focus on specific topical areas; (6) more rigorous assessments of the economics, environmental impacts and scale-up of processes to enhance the awareness and attractiveness of supercritical fluid-based technological developments; (7) establishment of new or expanded "data banks" for effective sharing of scientific information; and the (8) promotion of international networking through programs that provide opportunities for exchange of students and scientists. The panel members were positive about the future opportunities that exists in all the topical areas covered in the workshop. For example, the panel members pointed to new opportunities in wider utilization of biomass as a source of renewable energy with increased economic viability if the conversion processes were to combine biofuel production with the production of high value-added products which may be achieved by integrating supercritical fluid extraction processes with chemical transformations that may involve the integration of "extraction-fractionation-separation" steps that can be operated in a continuous mode. Significant advances are anticipated in power cycles that employ supercritical water and supercritical carbon dioxide. In the area of new materials and materials processing, opportunities exist in the production of nanostructured materials, catalysts, and in the production of organogels and polymeric foams especially in the development of continuous process modes. Advances are anticipated in the areas of composites, blends and other systems that aim to merge the synergistic properties of materials. Production of natural bio-active materials may benefit from hybrid approaches that combine unit operations such as extractions with compressed liquids with particle formation using supercritical carbon dioxide. Panel members further noted that progress towards commercialization will benefit from the development of modular unit operations which are then integrated for full or improved resource utilization. A more comprehensive account of the Workshop and its Panel Outcomes has been published in a special issue of the Journal of Supercritical Fluids [Volume 96 (2015)]. This special issue of the journal is dedicated to the Workshop and includes the peer-reviewed full manuscripts of the majority of the oral presentations given at the workshop. The extended abstracts of all the oral and poster presentations have also been published as an e-Book and is available free-of-charge at the website of the Journal of Supercritical Fluids [www.elsevier.com/locate/supflu]. The intimate setting of overview lectures, panels, and the poster presentations created an extremely friendly atmosphere to directly engage all participants, giving the younger scientists ample opportunity to interact closely with the current leaders and other researchers in the field towards building their international networking. Several participants have already initiated research collaborations and student / faculty exchange programs.
