Dr. Brett Parkinson
2017
Woodside John Monash Scholar
PhD
Chemical Engineering
Imperial College London
United Kingdom
Energy and Environment, Engineering
Brett has a Bachelors and a Masters of Chemical and Materials Engineering from the University of Queensland and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, which he completed on a John Monash Scholarship. He is pursuing an international career in the energy field, having worked for Momentive Specialty Chemicals, Incitec Pivot Limited, and the Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovations. He is currently a Senior Engineering Manager-R&D at C-Zero, an organisation commercialising a proprietary process for transforming natural gas into CO2-free hydrogen and a solid carbon co-product. Brett is an inspiring and passionate leader for energy sustainability problems and science communication, whose impact and leadership has been widely recognised through various platforms and awards. He has actively taught across all years of chemical engineering curriculum in Australia and the United Kingdom and developed and delivered international chemical engineering summer-school programs. He has published his research in top academic journals with over 800 citations, is a listed inventor on over 15 provisional patents for low CO2 hydrogen production, and authored a textbook chapter on low-CO2 hydrogen conversion routes. He has been a keynote speaker to international clean energy conferences, and recently spoke on a youth scientist panel at the COP26, Countdown to Planet Zero NextGen Debate. He is currently working in California to commercialise C-Zero’s drop-in decarbonisation technology, which allows industrial natural gas consumers to avoid producing CO2 in applications like electrical generation, process heating and the production of commodity chemicals like hydrogen and ammonia. C-Zero has closed their series A funding round, co-led by Bill-Gates backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Eni Next, with participation from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), AP Ventures and SK Gas. CZero was recently awarded Early Stage Company of the Year in the 2022 Global Cleantech 100 Awards.