Two ACS journal covers feature sustainability research on shale gas

Two research articles on energy and sustainability topics from the research group directed by Prof. Fengqi You, Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, were recently featured on the covers of two American Chemical Society (ACS) journals.

The first article, titled “Manufacturing Ethylene from Wet Shale Gas and Biomass: Comparative Technoeconomic Analysis and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment” (DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.7b03731), was featured on the cover of May 2018 issue of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. This article systematically studies and compares the economic and environmental implications of producing building-block chemicals from the manufacturing routes based on biorenewable and unconventional gas feedstocks. The lead authors of this article are Minbo Yang, a former visiting PhD student in You group and currently an Assistant Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University, and Xueyu Tian, an MS student in the Smith School.

The other article, titled “Integrated Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment and Optimization of Shale Gas” (DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03198), was selected to be featured on the cover of the June 2018 issue of ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, a high-impact journal published by ACS on sustainability and green chemistry. This article reports the results of a sophisticated integrated hybrid life cycle analysis and optimization framework for analyzing and optimizing climate change effects, resource depletion and energy consumption of shale gas energy systems. The lead author is Jiyao Gao, a doctoral student in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.