Congratulations to the Chem Eng final-year design team 2 for their award-winning report on a biomass to liquids (BTL) plant!

The IChemE Macnab-Lacey Prize is awarded every year to a student design project that demonstrates how the principles of chemical engineering can lead to a more sustainable world. It was founded with the aim of encouraging chemical engineering students to put sustainability at the core of all their design decisions and to encourage them to think innovatively towards sustainable development. This year we are proud to announce that the winning team was from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College and a prize of £750 will be awarded to the team comprised of nine undergraduate students: Nwachukwu Uzo, Olumayowa Okulate, Priyank Shah, Leona Tan, Yash Dongre, James Ellis, Joseph Wilson, Jaipal Sachdev and Richard Chang.

The project produced by the final year design team was selected by a judging panel at the Sustainability Special Interest Group for their design of a biomass to liquid conversion system. The plant would collect solid waste from municipalities, reprocess the waste to obtain useful syngas (a combination of CO and H₂) and use a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactor to convert the syngas into useful liquid fuels. The main goal was to achieve 50,000 tons of jet fuel production to supply airports in the South-East of England. The design outperformed the benchmark process of the IChemE on various environmental and economic parameters.

A team from the Department received a high commendation for their design project in 2014 and we are very pleased that a design project from the Department was chosen as the winner this year. Please join us once more in congratulating the team for their outstanding effort and innovative design.