The project is conducted in collaboration with Victrex, a global leader in high-performance polymers, and is based at Newcastle University within the EPSRC CDT in Process Industries: Net Zero (PINZ).

Project Aim

To develop quantitative process systems engineering methods and models to identify, evaluate, and enable step-change reductions in energy consumption in industrial polymer manufacturing through system-level process redesign.

Core Research Focus

You will develop and apply advanced modelling and analysis tools to:

• Construct high-resolution energy and mass balance models of industrial polymer processes
• Identify key sources of thermodynamic and operational inefficiency
• Quantify opportunities for heat integration, energy recovery, and process optimisation
• Develop and evaluate alternative process configurations and plant architectures
• Investigate process intensification and advanced separations for reduced-energy operation
• Assess techno-economic trade-offs: energy vs cost vs operability vs scalability

The project explicitly moves beyond incremental optimisation towards fundamental redesign of industrial process systems.

Industrial Collaboration (Victrex): You will work closely with Victrex engineering teams, including access to the Hillhouse manufacturing site.