Circular Engineering

Disposable pressure sensors are often used in Intensive Care units to prevent cross-contamination to other patients. You are challenged to analyse these sensors from a circularity perspective - for instance by assessing which parts of these sensors can be reused, remade or recycled - and generate a technical solution to increase their circularity.

Plastic packaging of food products is a major contributor to the generation of plastic soup. You are asked to analyse the entire packaging chain of a food product of your choice, identify all stakeholders involved and determine per stakeholder what business options are applicable in case a transition to a sustainable packaging system is strived for.

The chemical industry is currently highly dependent on fossil resources (naphtha and natural gas) for energy and feedstock. Your job is to select which biomass and technologies are suitable to replace a certain percentage of fossil feedstock in an existing chemical production process. Every step within a chemical process uses or generates energy. You need to optimise the process design of a chemical process or a cluster of chemical processes to minimise energy consumption in a smart way.

Efficient food production requires innovative solutions to long-standing problems. For instance, growing carrots can be challenging as it is highly dependent on temperature, humidity, and structure of the soil: conditions that are difficult to monitor or control. You are asked to define a process that would allow to grow carrots in a greenhouse using various types of sensors and artificial intelligence techniques to analyse optimal growth conditions.

In the preparation and analysis of tissue samples, quite some processing steps are required including a number of high energy sources (-80°C freezer) as well as the use of chemicals. You are asked to optimise and redesign the imaging process to reduce waste, number of consumables, energy and to replace chemicals by biodegradable substitutes.

Ranging from large-scale industries to small households, a transition is taking place to reduce energy consumption and to replace energy sources with greener alternatives. You are asked to assess which energy saving technologies can replace currently used technologies and apply it to a real-life situation, for instance by designing a heat pump and analysing its energy reducing effect.

Ranging from large-scale industries to small households, a transition is taking place to reduce energy consumption and to replace energy sources with greener alternatives. You are asked to assess which energy saving technologies can replace currently used technologies and apply it to a real-life situation, for instance by designing a heat pump and analysing its energy reducing effect.

As the world population increases, new approaches are necessary to guarantee a stable food supply. For instance, spinach seeds have a higher yield when they are produced by crossing a plant with mainly male flowers with a plant that has mainly female flowers. Your task is to find out the optimal growth conditions for growing plants with either male or female flowers to support the production of high-yield spinach seeds.