Fortech- 15 July 2022

Technopark recently started its Industry-Academia Talk Series titled FORTECH, a platform for industry and academia to share their research, its implications, present and future trends and foci, and partnership prospects, among other things. Dr. Sunil Ashtekar, Ph.D from #Shell technologies was invited to the series's opening event to set the tone. Abstract of the talk: For polymer products, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a defining step which helps in setting up the decarbonization and sustainability goals in a more quantitative way. LCA is a method to assess the potential environmental impact of products and processes throughout their entire life cycle which includes raw material acquisition, production, use, and end-of-life. He described current market trends for #flexiblepackaging materials for which alternatives such as bioplastics are being sought and what lies ahead for bio-based and biodegradable polyesters (#bioplastics) based on some key performance and #sustainability parameters. Dr. Sunil Ashtekar is a product development Lead and a subject matter expert for #polymer process technology at Shell. He leads multiple projects, e.g., process development work in Amsterdam, product development work in Houston, and provides project support for the polycarbonate scale-up unit in Singapore and the commercial green field project in China. He has co-authored numerous publications and has been granted patents on monomers and polymer product development. Before joining Shell in 2007, Dr. Ashtekar worked with GE-Plastics on co-polycarbonates and led product development work from the concept stage to commercial deployment. Dr. Ashtekar obtained his Ph.D. from IIT Bombay and did his post-doctoral study at the Cambridge University.