Ezra Systems Seminar: Petar Varbanov (Széchenyi István University )

Description

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Energy Implications of Circular Economy Solutions and Renewable Energy Integration

While the current world situation is characterised by increased geopolitical tensions, the environmental and sustainability issues have not disappeared. Moreover, the radical improvement of resource-saving and emission reduction is an objective inherently aligned with the objectives of increased resilience and energy/resource security. In this context, Széchenyi István University has launched an ambitious research programme dedicated to sustainability in a variety of domains, including fundamental science, engineering, supply chains, business processes, and social science. Within these, the circular economy and the integration of renewable sources into the energy supply to the economy are important areas related to each other, with the potential to minimise resource demands and emissions to a sufficient degree.

This presentation is aiming to overview key developments in the mentioned areas, mapping them into a coherent vision for integrated symbiosis networks that minimise the need for fresh resources without compromising the level and pace of economic development and preserving the resilience of regional economies. The core developments centre around two concepts – (a) process integration and (b) process network synthesis and optimisation. The former is a family of methods for minimising resource intake while maximising recovery and reuse. The latter is a sub-area of process synthesis exploiting the powerful P-graph framework for optimising structurally complex networks.

The overview is followed by analysis and discussion, showing the high importance of energy and exploiting energy integration as a fundamental binding element of diverse activities in society and economy. This is leading to an integrated vision for energy recovery, reuse, and cascading via optimal integration, with the goal of achieving higher rates of circularity in the circular economy and maximising renewable energy share with actual emission reduction.
 

Bio:
Petar Sabev Varbanov, is a full professor at Széchenyi István University in Győr, Hungary, Habilitation School. Prof. Varbanov is responsible for the training of postdoc fellows and Ph.D. candidates in academic writing. He is also the Head of SPIL – Sustainable Process Integration Laboratory, NETME Centre, FME, Brno University of Technology – VUT Brno, Czech Republic.

His main fields of activity are energy saving and efficiency, development and implementation of process integration, total site and regional integration for energy and water, waste to energy. He holds Ph.D. in process integration from UMIST (2004), Marie Curie Fellow (twice), full professor – Cracow University of Technology (2023).