Andrew Harris - Chemical Engineering
Dr Andrew Harris is a lecturer in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Sydney and director of the Laboratory for Sustainable Technology. He was awarded the 2007 Shedden Uhde medal as the leading chemical engineer in Australia and New Zealand under the age of 40.
Sustainable process development
The Laboratory for Sustainable Technology at the University of Sydney is a multidisciplinary research group of 25 staff and students, with expertise in mechanical and chemical engineering, chemistry, biology, materials science and anthropology.
Their objective is to create products and processes that maximise resource and energy efficiency, eliminate waste and cause no harm to the environment.
The group’s director, Dr Harris makes use of this scientific interface to develop truly sustainable solutions, using cutting edge technologies, particularly in the nano- and bio-sciences.
By necessity these projects have a long-term outlook. Harris is interested in developing processes for the future that are inherently sustainable, not ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions simply to be implemented in the near term.
He strongly believes this challenge cannot be attended to by a single group of experts – it requires a broad, multidisciplinary approach. Already, his group has made a number of advances. They have:
- invented a novel approach to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (by up to 87%) from underground coal mines using a porous burner reactor
- studied the uptake of metals using plants (phytomining) and extended this to the synthesis of metal nanoparticles using plants as biological factories
- developed a novel reactor design and nanoparticle CO2 sorbent system to support the hydrogen economy in Australia
- invented a process for the large-scale, low-cost manufacture of carbon nanotubes, a material of the future.
With all of these projects the focus has been on scale-up and commercial implementation, underpinned by strong scientific research.