Imagine a world where we can turn the exhaled CO2 into high-value products. From waste we can produce petrol or diesel, plastics, diapers for babies, or even a world-famous beer. As a chemical engineer, Kasun works to make this possible and break the vicious circle of using fossil fuels to run our society. To cite an alarming fact: a typical petrochemical plant releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than all 7 billion people on Earth right now. There are hundreds of such plants out there… can you imagine the impact on climate change and global warming? Listen to his fascinating talk and learn about the exciting possibilities engineers are currently busy with.

Kasun Kalhara Gunasooriya is a doctoral fellow at Ghent University in the Laboratory for Chemical Technology under Professor Mark Saeys and Professor Guy B. Marin. Kasun was born and raised in Sri Lanka. He moved to Singapore to complete his BEng and MEng degrees in Chemical Engineering at the National University of Singapore. For his PhD, Kasun designs catalysts by gaining insights in to the catalysts structure and mechanism using computers.