Shaffiq Jaffer
Vice President
Corporate Science and Technology Projects

As the world population heads to 9 billion by 2050, the grand challenges facing society are energy, water, food, health, bottom of the pyramid (BOP) and sustainability in all societal activities. By 2040, the global energy consumption will increase by greater than 60% globally. In 2030, the automotive fleet on the road is projected to reach 1.8 Billion vehicles while current estimates show the world oil production to plateau close to 100Mb/day by 2020.  Currently, on the order of 1.3 Billion people lack access to electricity and 2.6 Billion people rely on biomass as the primary energy source for cooking. In addition, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere passed 400ppm in 2013 and one third of today’s population live in basins with water scarcity. As we look at the future of polymer research and development, these ubiquitous materials have many areas of opportunity to help address societal challenges.  Mature applications today include: the use of polymers for membranes for reverse osmosis for desalination, the penetration of polymeric materials in automotive parts to enable light-weighting for fuel saving, polymer foams for insulation to reduce energy consumption in buildings/ homes and polymeric materials to protect food in the global supply chain. The opportunities for polymeric materials continue to grow rapidly and exponentially to make a lasting difference facing the grand challenges for society. This presentation will discuss these future opportunities from the viewpoint of an energy company.

Shaffiq Jaffer holds Chemical Engineering degrees from the University of Alberta (B.Sc.) and McMaster University (Ph.D.). His primary area of study was experimental fluid dynamics and fluid mixing.  He joined TOTAL SA six years ago and previously worked for Koch-Glitsch, Inc. and The Procter and Gamble Company (P&G). A major contribution at P&G was to help design novel processes to enable mass customization of consumer products. He currently is the Vice President of Corporate Science and Technology Projects in North America, with the mission to find novel ideas and technologies across the research community: academia, government including defense research organizations and private research companies, that will lead to breakthroughs in energy (production, conservation, efficiency), materials (PV, Catalysts, biomaterials) and manufacturing processes.