The School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering Seminar Series, “Life Cycle Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis for Future Energy Systems” Presented by Dr. Guiyan Zang
About the event
Life Cycle Assessment and Techno-Economic Analysis for Future Energy Systems
Presented by Dr. Guiyan Zang, Associate Professor, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Washington State University; Institute for Northwest Energy Futures, Washington State University
Abstract
Efficiency, cost, and emissions are key parameters to evaluate the performance of future energy systems. This presentation will introduce system design, techno-economic analysis (TEA), and life cycle analysis (LCA) on energy conversion and utilization systems. The presentation will include two parts. The first part will use low-carbon fuel production and supply chain analysis cases to show the four major steps of Dr. Zang’s work including process design to evaluate efficiency, TEA to calculate cost, LCA to quantify emissions, and supply chain to project future market. The second part will introduce more cases to show the practical applications of LCA and TEA analysis for lab-scale experimental scale-up, novel process design, and industrial decarbonization. The cases include biofuel production, campus building cooling/heating/electricity tri-generation, and iron and steel industrial decarbonization.
Biography
Dr. Guiyan Zang is an associate professor who joined Washington State University (WSU) in January 2026. Before joining WSU, she was the technoeconomic analysis research lead and research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), where she led the research of techno-economic analysis (TEA), life cycle analysis (LCA) and supply chain analysis. She contributed to projects on low-carbon fuel production and supply chain, industrial decarbonization, biomass conversion and system design, and building emissions control. Other than working at MIT, she worked for the Energy System Division (ES) and the Applied Material Division (AMD) at Argonne National Laboratory and received two Impact Argonne Awards. She holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Iowa.