UGent: Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN)

General expertise of the research group

The Research Group Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN) aims at designing and evaluating systems in a sustainability context, relying on engineering principles. Products, processes, supply chains, and production and consumption patterns are studied with:

• a focus on resources, i.e. resource footprint and resource efficiency
• a lifecycle thinking approach, e.g. operationalized through MFA and LCA
• thermodynamic principles, relying on the second law: exergy and exergetic life cycle analysis

The research is in close collaboration with national and international universities, research centres, policy makers and industry in areas of the following nature: chemical, pharma, primary raw materials, waste-as-a- resource, agro-bio-food …

Specific hydrogen- related expertise & research topics

• LCA of e-fuels
• resource footprint
• resource efficiency

Participating in FL/B/EU funded projects with H2 related research

• S2Chemicals (NL)
• CCU Hub
• See website: research.ugent.be

Main relevant publications

1. See website: biblio.ugent.be
2. Huysman S, Sala S, Mancini L, Ardente F, Freitas de Alvarenga R, De Meester S, et al. Toward a systematized framework for resource efficiency indicators. RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND RECYCLING. 2015;95:68–76.
3. Buchmayr A, Verhofstadt E, Van Ootegem L, Sanjuan Delmas D, Thomassen G, Dewulf J. The path to sustainable energy supply systems : proposal of an integrative sustainability assessment framework. RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS. 2021;138.