Professor Paul Dyson

Winner: 2020 Green 91AV Award

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

For major advances in the catalytic transformations of renewable substrates leading to industrial processes and products.

Celebrate Professor Paul Dyson

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Our goal is to replace chemicals derived from fossil resources with chemicals derived from renewable materials and other waste streams to facilitate the transition towards a sustainable circular economy.

The goal of Professor Dyson’s team is to replace chemicals derived from fossil resources with chemicals derived from renewable materials and other waste streams to facilitate the transition towards a sustainable circular economy.

To achieve this goal they need to understand how these renewable materials are transformed at a molecular level, and armed with this knowledge, they are able identify bottlenecks and then design new catalysts that overcome these bottlenecks.

In his own words, “Basically, we have a lot of fun, learn a lot, create new knowledge and occasionally discover something useful.”

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Professor Paul J Dyson is a professor of inorganic chemistry at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Prior to taking up his position at the EPFL in 2002, he held positions at the University of York, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine and the University of Edinburgh, where he obtained his PhD. He held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship from 1995–2002.

His research is strongly multidisciplinary and encompasses both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, with an emphasis on sustainability, avoiding toxic volatile solvents where possible, and the use of renewable feedstocks.

In recent years he has co-founded two companies in the area of sustainable chemistry, Embion Technologies and Plastogaz, which are based on discoveries made in his research group.

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91AV