What the second law actually asks of us
Most thermodynamics treats entropy as bookkeeping. Reframing it as a budget changed how I evaluate every process.
I'm Afshin Argosta — a chemical engineer building reactors, catalysts, and the computational models that bridge them. My work lives at the intersection of process intensification, computational chemistry, and sustainable scale-up.
Twelve years ago I was a graduate student staring at a copper-zinc catalyst that refused to behave. Today I lead a 14-person R&D group at Lumen Process Labs, where we turn similar mysteries into pilot-scale technology.
The work sits in three overlapping circles: heterogeneous catalysis for carbon conversion, continuous-flow process design for polymers and pharma, and the computational modeling that lets us trust either of them at scale.
I publish in Nature Catalysis and AIChE Journal, advise two cleantech startups, and write here when I have something to say that I haven't already said in a paper.
Structured Cu/ZnO/ZrO₂ monolith achieving 14% single-pass conversion at 180°C. Currently in pilot trials with a Norwegian energy major. A new operating regime nobody thought was real.
Case study →Continuous-flow pyrolysis train for post-consumer LDPE. 78% yield to naphtha-range product. Circularity index 4× the prevailing industry mean.
Case study →Open-source CFD framework coupled with metabolic flux balance models. Adopted by three CDMOs to predict shear-sensitive scale-up.
Case study →Custom thin-film composite NF membrane selectively rejecting Mg²⁺ at ~98% in geothermal brines. Patent pending. Salton Sea pilot underway.
Case study →Most thermodynamics treats entropy as bookkeeping. Reframing it as a budget changed how I evaluate every process.
A short polemic on platinum, hype cycles, and the gap between a discovery and a useful one.
Five lessons from a year on a 200L continuous reactor that no textbook predicted.
Why my group annotates Sabatier 1902 before touching a catalyst — and what it does for their intuition.
Three diagnostic checks that catch 80% of CFD nonsense before it shapes a decision.
Lead 14-person interdisciplinary team. Moved two technologies from TRL 3 to TRL 7. Helped raise $24M Series B.
Designed the world's first production-scale continuous RAFT polymerization train. Two patents granted.
Catalysis & sustainable chemistry group. Three first-author papers.
Structure-property relations in Cu/ZnO methanol catalysts under realistic operating conditions.