The Stanford-led team is developing a process called electrochemical stripping, adsorption, and precipitation (ESAP) to recover ammonia, phosphorus, and magnesium from concentrated waste streams, including those from food industries. These nutrients are essential for crop production and industrial applications, but often end up polluting waterways. ESAP captures and refines them into commercial-grade fertilizers, disinfectants, and other marketable products, using electricity rather than chemical additives.
At Illinois, Jeremy Guest, the Levenick Professor and Director of the Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy, leads modeling and systems analysis to guide the design, testing, and scaling of ESAP. Guest is also a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering and Associate Director for Research at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).
Guest’s group uses two open-source software platforms, QSDsan and BioSTEAM, to simulate performance, costs, emissions, and energy use under real-world conditions. Their work helps identify which designs are most sustainable and cost-effective. The team has also built more than 30 benchmark wastewater treatment plant models representing over 70 percent of U.S. treatment capacity, giving ESAP developers a realistic baseline for comparison.
“Our work connects lab-scale innovation to real-world deployment,” Guest said. “By modeling how these systems perform under uncertainty, we can help design solutions that are both sustainable and financially viable.”
The project also involves Recovered Potential, a Stanford-affiliated startup that will test and commercialize the technology. This close collaboration between research and industry is designed to accelerate ESAP from concept to application.
By combining advanced electrochemistry, open-source modeling, and market-driven design, the Illinois–Stanford collaboration is redefining how wastewater can serve as a renewable source of nutrients, powering a more sustainable, circular bioeconomy.
How BioSTEAM and QSDsan speed scale-up
Before any new wastewater technology is built, researchers can test it virtually. BioSTEAM, an open-source Python platform developed by Jeremy Guest’s team, simulates how biorefineries and treatment systems would be scaled up and operated, from the detailed design and dynamic simulations of unit operations to energy use, costs, and environmental impacts under uncertainty.
QSDsan, also created by Guest’s team, builds on that foundation for sanitation and resource recovery systems. It combines process modeling with techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA), incorporates uncertainty, and accounts for local context to support quantitative sustainable design and decision making.
Together, these tools let teams explore many design options and site conditions in software, then focus on real-world testing where the technology can deliver the most impact and scale for commercial use.
“What we’re celebrating is momentum,” said iSEE Director Madhu Khanna. “The Levenicks’ commitment to sustainability is inspiring a new generation of leaders who are tackling our most pressing global challenges.”
“This investiture honors not only a remarkable record but a mindset: clarity of purpose, intellectual rigor, and a conviction that science should serve people and invite students to see themselves shaping the future,” said College of ACES Dean Germán Bollero.
Their appointments were made possible through the generosity of Stuart L. and Nancy J. Levenick, longtime supporters of the University of Illinois, whose philanthropy has helped establish endowed professorships, student scholarships, and sustainability programs that drive real-world change.
“With this dual investiture, we recognize the contributions of these two outstanding faculty members,” said Grainger College of Engineering Executive Associate Dean Philippe Geubelle. “We also celebrate a model for how the University of Illinois can address pressing societal challenges through collaboration, partnership, and shared vision.”
Kaiyu Guan is an internationally recognized scientist whose work integrates computational modeling, satellite remote sensing, field observation, and artificial intelligence to understand how climate and human activity shape agriculture and ecosystems. A professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in the College of ACES, Guan has produced more than 160 highly cited publications and has received over $22 million in competitive support from NASA, NSF, USDA, and DOE. His recognitions range from the NSF CAREER and NASA New Investigator awards to the AGU James B. Macelwane Medal and the FoodShot Global GroundBreaker Prize. As the founding director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center and chief scientist for the NASA Acres Program, his research advances food and water security while promoting sustainable agricultural systems worldwide.
Jeremy Guest, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Grainger Engineering, also serves as associate director for research at iSEE and as deputy theme lead for sustainability for the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI). He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, the Paul L. Busch Award for innovation in applied water quality research from the Water Research Foundation, and the James J. Morgan Environmental Science & Technology Early Career Award for creativity and leadership in his field. With more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, his work focuses on advancing technologies that recover resources and convert plants into products, food, and fuels.
About Stuart L. and Nancy J. Levenick
Stuart Levenick retired as group president from Caterpillar Inc., where he held a variety of executive roles, and he currently holds board positions with several international corporations. He also serves as a member of the board of directors and the development committee chair for the University of Illinois Foundation, and is a member of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics Campaign Planning Committee. Stuart Levenick graduated from the College of ACES with a bachelor’s degree in forestry and furthered his education as a Sloan Fellow, earning a master’s degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded the University of Illinois Varsity “I” Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 and the College of ACES Career Achievement Award in 2018.
Nancy Levenick graduated from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Education, and taught high school English in Toronto before the couple embarked on an eight-move, global career, including assignments in Canada, Singapore, Russia, and Japan, returning to Peoria in 2004. Since then, Nancy Levenick has been an active member of the Children’s Hospital of Illinois Advocacy Board and a board member of WTVP and the Peoria Ballet. Both Stuart and Nancy have been active members of the Heart of Illinois United Way.
Jeremy Guest, the new Director and iSEE Levenick Professor at the Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy.
A first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary center focused on creating a climate-smart circular bioeconomy is poised for significant growth, with the appointment of a director, two endowed professorships, and a major campus commitment to hire four new faculty in departments across the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
In his research, Guest explores resource recovery, biomanufacturing, and systems analyses to advance the circular bioeconomy and achieve equitable, healthy, and prosperous communities while enhancing the ecosystems that support them.
“It’s an honor to serve as the inaugural Director of the Levenick Center, which represents a bold and transformative investment in the future of our university and region,” Guest said. “The Levenick Center will act as a catalyst for interdisciplinary collaborations and cross-sector partnerships to accelerate society’s transition to a more sustainable, circular bioeconomy.”
Growth of this Levenick Center will be supported by an interdisciplinary “cluster hire” of four new faculty under a Special Hiring Initiative by the campus. These faculty will be hired in the following departments: NRES, the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE), and the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering in ACES; and the Department of Plant Biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS). The Levenick gift will provide startup funding for these faculty who will be affiliated with the Levenick Center.
“This new center and faculty hires will make the University of Illinois an unquestioned leader in research and education on a climate-smart circular bioeconomy (CCB). It will nucleate a campuswide research and education program specifically designated for CCB scholarship,” said iSEE Director and Alvin H. Baum Family Fund Chair Madhu Khanna, ACES Distinguished Professor of Environmental Economics.
The Levenick Center will foster interdisciplinary research and education to support the transition to a circular bioeconomy – a holistic approach to production where waste from one sector can be used productively in another to keep materials in use longer, reduce the need to extract finite natural resources, and displace fossil fuels. A circular bioeconomy would replace the current “take-make-waste” approach with a system that reduces, recycles, recovers, and reuses waste – catalyzing a future in which biological resources are transformed into food, feed, energy, and biomaterials.
The center’s work will address pressing concerns about the depletion of natural resources, air and water pollution, the buildup of plastics in our oceans, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity.
“The transition from fossil carbon to renewable carbon feedstocks has the potential to support development across the rural-to-urban continuum in the Midwest and broader U.S., helping shift our national trajectory toward a sustainable, safe, and secure bioeconomy,” Guest said.
This complex transition will require breakthrough science that bridges disciplines as well as a solutions-oriented mindset among economists, social and environmental scientists, biologists, and engineers, Khanna said. The new faculty will be affiliated with the Levenick Center and iSEE, benefiting from interdisciplinary team science and seed funding opportunities. The cluster hire will enhance research synergies at iSEE and across campus, fostering innovative ideas and transferring knowledge to the real world for public well-being, economic benefit, resiliency, and sustainability. It will also create educational experiences for students interested in sustainable design, economics, policy, climate change mitigation and adaptation, biotechnology, and environmental science.
“The visionary Levenick Center represents an exciting opportunity to draw on existing campus strengths and further develop cross-disciplinary partnerships toward a more sustainable future,” said College of ACES Dean and Robert A. Easter Chair Germán Bollero. “Further, the investments in scholars like Kaiyu Guan and Jeremy Guest, who embody the forefront of innovation in this space, will transform bioeconomies in ways we can’t even imagine.”
The Levenick Professorships for Guest and Guan are based on their accomplishments and contributions to iSEE and their respective colleges.
Guest’s research focuses on sustainable sanitation and nutrient recovery in both developing and technologically advanced communities, as well as technologies that advance the sustainability of agriculture and the conversion of plants to bioproducts, biofuels, and nutritious foods. He is the sustainable design lead for the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), a $262.5M Bioenergy Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, and a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Paul L. Busch Award from the Water Research Foundation, and the 2021 James J. Morgan Environmental Science & Technology Early Career Award for creativity and leadership in his field.
“Grainger Engineering has long been a leader in sustainability research, technological innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration with real-world impact,” said Grainger Engineering Dean Rashid Bashir. “With his deep expertise in advancing sustainable technologies and his proven leadership in pioneering research that bridges engineering, environmental science, and public policy, Prof. Guest is uniquely equipped to drive the transformation toward a sustainable future.”
Guan is also the Blue Waters Professor of Supercomputing at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Siebel School of Computing and Data Science and Chief Scientist of the NASA Acres Consortium, NASA’s flagship program for advancing U.S. agricultural research. Guan is at the forefront of monitoring and modeling agroecosystems for food security and environmental sustainability. His team recently developed a “system-of-systems” framework to quantify agricultural productivity and environmental impacts at scale and low cost. He has also created tools to help farmers make informed decisions about sustainable practices. Guan has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, NASA New Investigator Award, American Geophysical Union (AGU) Early Career Award in Global Environmental Change, and FoodShot Global GroundBreaker Prize. Guan was recently awarded the distinguished James B. Macelwane Medal by the AGU and became an AGU Fellow.
“This great honor goes to our whole team and collaborators – a testament of our campus’s commitment to interdisciplinary research. The Levenick Center’s generous support will further advance our research to help the farming industry and the economy as a whole transition to be more sustainable and resilient,” Guan said. “This work builds on the University of Illinois’ mission of transforming lives and serving society by putting knowledge to work with excellence.”
The figure at left represents multiple pathways to reduce, recycle, and reuse waste in a circular economy; the figure at right represents multiple pathways to produce inputs, food and energy products in a bioeconomy. Together, they show the interconnections among the pathways to reduce, recycle, and reuse waste and to convert unavoidable waste and other biological resources to bioproducts that displace fossil fuels. Credit: Shared from Communications Earth and Environment under a Creative Commons license
Conventional food and agricultural production systems employ a linear “take, make, waste” approach: taking natural resources from the Earth to make food and fuel, generating waste that contaminates the soil and water, and emitting harmful pollutants.
More recently, a new model of production is gaining traction in the scientific and business community: a “circular bioeconomy” that reduces and recycles waste, transitions away from fossil fuels to renewable bio-based alternatives, and regenerates natural systems. This approach is critical for feeding and fueling the world’s growing population in environmentally sustainable ways.
But it’s a complicated concept, and significant questions remain: How should waste reduction be implemented? How far should we go in being “circular,” considering its costs and benefits? And how can a circular bioeconomy system get buy-in from farmers, industry, and consumers in a market economy?
A new paper by noted agricultural economists and scientists argues that the concept of a circular bioeconomy needs to expand beyond its technical focus on reducing waste and incorporate a values-based economic lens. The authors emphasize the need for the right policies, incentives, and market signals to persuade consumers and producers to make environmentally sound decisions – and to help ensure that the system is equitable.
“Zero waste is an appealing goal, but we also need to consider the economic consequences of achieving this goal – the cost, who bears it, and how we get people to implement it. This requires us to not just focus on the environmental benefits of reducing waste and fossil fuel use, but to think about what level of waste is acceptable considering economic and equity goals as well as how we make the transition by inducing consumers and producers to make the right choices,” said lead author Madhu Khanna, ACES Distinguished Professor in Environmental Economics and Alvin H. Baum Family Chair & Director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Charting the path to a circular bioeconomy will require creative ideas from researchers in multiple disciplines, including social scientists, to understand human behavior and design the right kinds of incentives, Khanna said.
The paper, published in Communications Earth and Environment was co-authored with David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley; Gal Hochman, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and Bruno Basso, Michigan State University.
A circular bioeconomy provides a framework for reducing waste and improving sustainability throughout the economy, Khanna said. It aims to not only reduce environmental contamination associated with agricultural production, but also transform the energy sector, plastics manufacturing, and other industries by using agricultural waste as a resource that can help reduce dependence on fossil fuels and decarbonize the economy.
The authors incorporated those concepts into an economic framework to help determine the optimal level of circularity in a market economy. They recommend five critical pathways to enable the transition:
Technological advances through investment in research and development, to lower the cost of climate-smart and clean energy innovations.
Regulatory incentives that put a price on waste and environmental damage, such as a carbon tax, and institutional changes like crop insurance programs that lower the risk of adopting sustainable practices for farmers.
Robust markets for circular products.
Public education and awareness about the ecosystem benefits of a circular bioeconomy.
Equity considerations for displaced workers and consumers vulnerable to high prices.
Researchers have made great strides developing individual technologies that contribute to a circular bioeconomy in food and agriculture – such as precision farming and digital agricultural technologies that can increase the efficiency with which chemicals are utilized for crop production, and advances in synthetic biology to convert plants and waste materials into biofuels and biochemicals, replacing petroleum-based, carbon dioxide-emitting energy sources.
But many of these technologies are expensive. More investment is needed to scale them and make them commercially competitive and affordable for farmers and consumers, the authors said.
One underlying question in designing eco-friendly policies is how to create the right incentives for people to adopt sustainable technology – and how to put a value on the most effective approaches. The challenge with agricultural pollution, for example, is that it’s difficult to measure and pinpoint the source of runoff or other contaminants. New tools like a “digital twin” – a computer replica of a field – can help calculate the environmental impact of agricultural management practices, such as adding nitrogen to the soil. Those kinds of advances can lead to targeted policies that reward farmers for results, rather than providing costly uniform payments for participation in conservation programs,
The overall solution will require action by the public and private sector, according to the authors. Many corporations are already adopting sustainable practices, and many consumers are willing to pay a higher price for organic foods and sustainably sourced products. Still, those efforts fall far short of what is needed to curb climate change or reduce pollutants that cause hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. New government incentives, and changes in the way pollution is regulated, are necessary, Khanna said.
Educating consumers can change their preferences and willingness to pay for climate-smart commodities, creating market demand and political support. “If consumers don’t demand enough of it, and aren’t willing to pay, the producer is not going to produce it,” Khanna said.
The move to circular bioeconomy must be accompanied by social programs that shield vulnerable low-income consumers from higher prices in the short term, and provide new training for workers who may lose jobs as the fossil fuel industry declines, the authors said.
The next step will be to develop more interdisciplinary research programs where economists work with engineers and scientists to apply this framework to specific industries or supply chains, to determine what a transition to a circular bioeconomy would look like for that sector. “We are excited that we are establishing a new Center in iSEE to catalyze that kind of research,” Khanna said, referring to the new Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy at Illinois.
The transition to a circular bioeconomy will require a long-term policy commitment, consistent policies, and investments that could take a decade or more to pay off, Khanna said.
“We are significantly falling short of meeting both our U.S. and global targets for carbon emissions reduction. Additionally, other environmental issues such as water quality degradation and biodiversity loss are worsening. It is crucial to recognize that these environmental problems are interconnected, ranging from air and water pollution to plastic waste,” Khanna said. “These issues all stem from the same source: our current methods of production and consumption. Instead of addressing these problems individually, transitioning to a circular bioeconomy offers a holistic solution.”
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce the creation of the Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy, the first such named center in the United States, pending approval by the Board of Trustees in November. Funded by a generous $10 million gift from Stuart L. (ACES ’76) and Nancy J. Levenick (pictured), the Center will be housed in the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), the cross-campus home for interdisciplinary science that tackles sustainability challenges and mitigation of climate change.
A climate-smart circular bioeconomy puts recycling and regeneration at the center of how we grow and process food. The aim is to reduce the use of fossil fuels and synthetic chemicals, and instead use technological and biological resources to restore and regenerate natural systems.
“It is more important than ever that we bring our best scientists together to build systems that allow us to meet the needs of a growing global economy without damaging the environment,” Stu Levenick said. “This unique center will leverage interdisciplinary collaboration with the University of Illinois leadership in agriculture, engineering, and sustainability to drive the science forward.”
The Center will support the hiring of faculty and attract resources to enable interdisciplinary team science and transformative partnerships with the public and private sector to develop environmentally and economically beneficial strategies that are climate-smart, circular, and aimed at decarbonizing the economy. The Center will also support new outreach programming, working closely alongside the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) to create a Corporate Sustainability in Practice Program that will prepare decision makers to implement climate-smart, circular, and net zero practices in their businesses.
“Transitioning to a climate-smart circular bioeconomy is a complex global challenge that requires diverse perspectives, multi-faceted knowledge, and breakthrough science that bridges disciplines,” said Madhu Khanna, Alvin H. Baum Family Chair and Director of iSEE. “We are immensely grateful to Stu and Nancy Levenick for this generous gift that reflects their deep commitment to interdisciplinary sustainability science and will position iSEE as a leader in developing creative and actionable solutions and public-private partnerships that have regional relevance and global impact.”
Illinois is a leader in agriculture, sustainability, weather and climate research, and engineering, and the Levenick Center is perfectly positioned to make inroads in decarbonization, improving food security, and predicting and adapting to climate change.
“As a land-grant institution rooted in the pursuit of innovation and discovery, we are deeply grateful to Stu and Nancy for their visionary leadership and unwavering commitment to advancing interdisciplinary research in sustainability,” said Germán Bollero, Dean and Robert A. Easter Chair in the College of ACES. “Their generous contributions align with ACES’ mission to address the world’s most pressing challenges to sustain and advance life. This gift will have a profound and lasting impact on both our campus and society at large.”
The Levenicks have been loyal supporters of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for many years. Their previous gifts have established the following: the Levenick Chair in Sustainability in the College of ACES; the Levenick Resident Scholars in Sustainability Leadership program; the Levenick iSEE Fellows Program; and a state-of-the-art classroom, meeting space, and media studio constructed with joint support from Caterpillar. They have also endowed athletic scholarships and helped fund the Henry Dale and Betty Smith Football Performance Center.
“The Levenicks have a vision for protecting our planet and building systems that repair the damage to our climate,” said Robert J. Jones, Chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Their investment in Illinois reflects their trust in our ability to provide bold and imaginative solutions, and I deeply appreciate their partnership as we continue to innovate around this critical goal.”
Stuart L. Levenick retired as group president from Caterpillar Inc., where he held a variety of executive roles during his thirty-seven-year career. He also serves as a member of the board of directors and chairs the engagement committee for the University of Illinois Foundation. Levenick was awarded the University of Illinois Varsity “I” Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 and the College of ACES Career Achievement Award in 2018.
Nancy J. Levenick graduated from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Education, and taught high school English in Toronto. Nancy Levenick has been an active member of the Children’s Hospital of Illinois Advocacy Board and a board member of WTVP and Peoria Ballet. Both Stu and Nancy have been active members of the Heart of Illinois United Way.
