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| Daniel Bunce | |
|---|---|
| Name | Daniel Bunce |
| Birth date | 1978 |
| Birth place | Sheffield, South Yorkshire |
| Occupation | Chemical engineer, entrepreneur, researcher |
| Years active | 2000–present |
| Known for | Process intensification, energy recovery, carbon capture technologies |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge; Imperial College London |
Daniel Bunce
Daniel Bunce is a British chemical engineer, entrepreneur, and researcher known for work in process intensification, energy recovery, and carbon capture technologies. His career spans academic research, industrial leadership, and startup incubation across the United Kingdom, the United States, and continental Europe. Bunce has collaborated with major institutions and corporations on decarbonization, process optimization, and commercialization of modular chemical processes.
Bunce was born in Sheffield and attended King Edward VII School, Sheffield, where he developed early interests in chemistry and mechanical design. He read Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge, obtaining a BA and later an MSci with a project linked to heat exchanger design for the Steel industry. He completed postgraduate studies at Imperial College London with a PhD in process systems engineering, focusing on intensification pathways inspired by research at the Institute of Chemical Engineers and collaborations with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. During his doctoral work he spent a research placement at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Engineering and attended workshops at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on modular process design.
After his PhD, Bunce joined the industrial research division of BP as a process development engineer working on gas treatment and waste heat recovery. He later moved to a technical role at Shell in Rotterdam, contributing to LNG refrigeration cycle improvements and low-temperature processing. Transitioning to the startup sector, he co-founded a spin-out incubated at Imperial Innovations that targeted microreactor-based synthesis for pharmaceutical intermediates and partnered with GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca for pilot-scale trials. Bunce served as Chief Technology Officer at a cleantech firm backed by BP Ventures and Equinor, leading teams in pilot plants across Aberdeen, Houston, and Rotterdam. He has held advisory roles for the UK Research and Innovation and acted as a visiting lecturer at University College London and University of Manchester.
Bunce's research emphasis has been on process intensification, heat integration, and modular chemical plant architecture. He contributed to the development of compact heat exchanger geometries adopted in pilot units at TotalEnergies refineries and worked on rotary regenerator concepts tested with Siemens Energy. His work on sorbent-assisted capture was trialed in collaboration with National Grid and retrofitting studies for the Drax Group biomass facilities. Bunce has been involved in cross-sector consortia including Catapult centres and EU framework programmes with partners such as Fraunhofer Society, Shell Research Limited, ENI, and BASF. He collaborated with researchers at the University of Oxford on advanced solvent formulations and with ETH Zurich on process control strategies for flexible operation in chemical plants. Industry implementations informed standards discussions with ISO and technical committees at the Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Bunce has authored peer-reviewed articles in journals including Chemical Engineering Journal, AIChE Journal, and Energy & Environmental Science on topics such as intensified reactor design, heat recovery networks, and solvent regeneration. He has contributed chapters to books published by Wiley and presented at conferences including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting, the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) congress, and the International Conference on Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS). Bunce holds patents on compact exchanger-fabrication methods and modular sorption units filed through collaborations with Imperial Innovations, BP plc, and a venture-backed startup. His patent portfolio includes methods for integrated capture and conversion, designs for monolithic microreactor arrays, and scalable manufacturing approaches for modular process skid units.
Bunce received early-career fellowships from the Royal Academy of Engineering and an innovation prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry for technology translation. He was named to a "40 Under 40" list by Chemical Engineering magazine and received industry recognition from the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry. His pilot contributions were acknowledged by project awards within the Horizon 2020 programme and by national innovation schemes administered by UK Research and Innovation. Bunce has been invited to testify at parliamentary inquiries on industrial decarbonization and to present at industry government forums including panels convened by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
Bunce lives in London and maintains active links with Cambridge and Imperial alumni networks. He participates in mentoring programmes run by Entrepreneur First and advises several cleantech accelerators such as SETsquared Partnership and EIT InnoEnergy. His legacy includes contributions to early commercial demonstrations of intensified modular processes and advancing pathways for industrial low-carbon transitions through combined academic and industrial partnerships. He continues to influence standards, commercialization strategies, and workforce development across the chemical and energy sectors.
Category:British chemical engineers Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge Category:Alumni of Imperial College London