Addressing the Challenges at the Energy-Materials-Food-Water Nexus Through Green Chemistry

The Food-Energy-Water nexus is a complex problem requiring a multidisciplinary research approach for understanding how they are linked and how sustainable solutions can be developed to ensure the continued provision of these necessary resources for humanity. Chemists and chemical engineers possess unique and diverse core skills to address some of the grand challenges in this area such as sustainable energy production, the use of renewable feedstocks while conserving soil nutrients, energy-efficient water purification/desalination, CO₂ fixation and sustainable ammonia production. These challenges provide exciting R&D opportunities for the green chemistry community, including the development of new chemistries and resource-efficient technologies to produce fuels and every-day chemical products from distributed feedstocks such as plant-based biomass, shale gas and CO₂. To effectively harness these diverse and geographically distributed resources, a paradigm shift away from the centralized "bigger is better" approach towards chemical processing concepts that are viable at much smaller scales is required. The GRC brings together leading experts from academia and industry to discuss the latest advances and future R&D directions for meeting these grand challenges.