I am giving a plenary lecture on Sustainable Process Innovation and Scale-up at PSRI 2026 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, June 23, 2026.
Sustainable Industrial Process Innovation and Scale-up is a hot topic for companies in view of contributing to the Paris Agreement to combat climate change and to Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. To these ends many new process ideas are generated by established companies, as well as by start-ups. The big question is: how to rapidly develop these ideas and have a successful commercial scale implementation. Presently half of all commercial scale process start-ups fail, because of poor concept design, poor process development, wrong engineering, and, or, insufficient start-up preparation.
The talk I give at the PSRI annual meeting will present critical success factors for all innovation stages, ideation, concept, feasibility, development, EPC, and start-up. The impact of process intensification concept design to obtain low cost processes, which are also more reliable to scale-up will be illustrated by an industrial biofuels process development, with successful commercial scale implementation.
The PSRI annual meeting is a unique opportunity for employees of PSRI Member Companies to engage with cutting-edge research, collaborate with industry leaders, and contribute to the future of fluidization and particle technology. The meeting includes a mix of technical presentations, committee meetings, networking opportunities, and a facility tour, designed to foster innovation and collaboration. You can read all about this event on the website of PSRI: https://psri.org/tac/tac2026