Keynote Speaker
What is the Future for Green and Sustainable Chemical Technology?
Professor Jason Hallett
Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Since its inception more than 30 years ago there has been intense academic interest in researching green chemistry approaches and developing sustainable chemical technologies. Recently, there has been intense industrial focus on some aspects of sustainability, mainly centred on decarbonization of processes and the use of renewable electricity. While there has also been an explosive growth in environmentally driven startups in recent years, including university spin-outs aiming to translate academic research into commercial practice, large-scale successes and impact has been slow to develop. Facing an ever-decreasing patience for chemistry development and an increased interest in biotechnology, green chemistry is rapidly approaching a pressure point to demonstrate real-world impact that validates the core concepts.
In this presentation I will discuss how the principle aims of green chemistry research – improving the sustainability of the chemical and materials industries – has achieved past success and where impact has arisen or failed. I will discuss needs of scale, development timelines and market forces that can enhance or reduce the chances of success for a sustainable innovation. This will help reveal a potential roadmap for identifying which technologies may be appropriate for deployment in the commercial sector and which are more useful as academic examples. Considerations such as scale-up, cost, capital fundraising needs and challenges will be covered using lessons I have learned through forming 9 cleantech startups in the past decade.
Jason Hallett is Professor of Sustainable Chemical Technology and holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies within the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. He also serves as co-Director of the UK’s National Supergen Bioenergy Hub.
He has authored or co-authored >200 total publications and 10 patents. These publications have generated >35,000 citations with an h-index of 63, including the most highly cited papers in his two primary fields – ionic liquids and biorefining. His research and translation efforts have been recognized with prizes from the Royal Society (Translation Award), Royal Academy of Engineering (Princess Royal Silver Medal), Royal Society of Chemistry (Open Prize: Environment) and IChemE (Global Sustainability Award and Global Team Award) and has been profiled by many noteworthy scientific magazines and journals, including the Washington Post, Scientific American, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry World and Science.
He has received more than €60 million in research funding from UKRI, industry and EU programmes since 2013 and has leveraged these collaborations into 9 spin-out companies to act as vehicles for the translation of his research into practice. His first spin-out company (Lixea) built a pilot plant which he designed and which was constructed in Sweden, commissioned and operated since 2022. Lixea recently announced a €50m demonstration plant to be constructed in Slovakia in 2026. Jason currently leads a group of 22 PhDs and 13 PDRAs alongside 30 researchers in spin-out companies to ensure their efforts are translated into academic, scientific and commercial impact on society.
