Dr. Marc-Olivier Coppens
Centre for Nature-Inspired Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, UCL
Dr. Marc-Olivier Coppens is Ramsay Memorial Professor in Chemical Engineering at University College London (UCL) since 2012, after professorships at Rensselaer (USA, 2006-2012) and TU Delft (Netherlands, 1998-2006). He has been Vice-Dean (Interdisciplinarity, Innovation) for UCL Engineering (2021-2024), after serving as Head of Department of Chemical Engineering (2012-2020). He directs the Centre for Nature-Inspired Engineering (UCL CNIE), founded through an EPSRC “Frontier Engineering” Award in 2013. He received his MSc (1993) and PhD (1996) in Chemical Engineering from Ghent University (Belgium) and was a research fellow in Mathematics at Yale and in Chemical Engineering at UC Berkeley (USA). He is recognised for pioneering nature-inspired chemical engineering (NICE) over the past 25 years and developing a systematic nature-inspired solution methodology to accelerate innovation for sustainable development. He is Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), Corresponding Member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Germany, Qiushi Professor at Zhejiang University in China, and Scientific Council Member for IFP Energies nouvelles in France. He serves on advisory and editorial boards, including Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification and the Advisory Boards of RSC Molecular Systems Design & Engineering and IOP Sustainability Science & Technology.
Presentation:
Nature-Inspired Materials: Accelerating innovation for sustainable development
Tackling Grand Challenges in energy, water, health and sustainable manufacturing, framed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals but also economic requirements, requires transformative approaches and interdisciplinary thinking, beyond incremental variations on traditional designs. We turn to nature for inspiration, because nature provides us with examples of solutions, perfected over the ages, to challenges that mirror those encountered in technology, such as scalability, efficiency, and resilience. However, such solutions from nature cannot be copied: the fundamental mechanisms underpinning properties of interest need to be understood, before adopting and adapting them to the different context of industrial applications. This can be achieved via a systematic, nature-inspired solution methodology to accelerate innovation for sustainable development. This approach will be illustrated with examples related to chemical engineering (NICE) in areas relevant to functional materials, supporting the energy and environmental transition required for sustainable development. The broader applicability of NICE and the versatile NIS methodology will be touched upon as well, with applications in biomedical and healthcare engineering.
Figure: Ubiquitous fundamental mechanisms in nature, underpinning NICE applications [1]
References: [1] Coppens, M.-O. Nature-Inspired Chemical Engineering for Process Intensification. Ann. Rev. Chem. Biomolec. Eng.2021, 12, 187-215.
