Margarita Athanasia Charalambous

Research area

Margarita Charalambous is a PhD student in the SUPERlab at ETH Zurich, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gonzalo Guillén Gosálbez. She holds a Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, where her Master's thesis focused on developing a systematic methodology for the simultaneous minimization of water and energy consumption. Before joining ETH, Margarita worked at the Fuel Cells and Diagnostics Group at the Paul Scherrer Institute, where she contributed to the characterization of porous transport layers in electrolyzers.

Her research supports the group's work on the production and assessment of sustainable fuels for heavy-duty transport applications such as trucks and ships. Leveraging process systems engineering, life cycle assessment, and optimization tools, she aims to identify optimal decarbonization pathways for the transport sector. Her work specifically investigates the economic and environmental trade-offs of large-scale renewable fuel implementation, with a strong focus on prospective environmental implications through life cycle optimization. One of her key contributions is the development of the Integrated LCA framework, which is implemented in the open-source IntLCAPython package.

In parallel with her research, Margarita has served as a teaching assistant for the courses Process Design and Development and Case Studies in Process Engineering. She has a strong interest in sustainable process design, the decarbonization of the chemical industry, and the promotion of sustainable practices. She is also a member of the Women in Green Hydrogen expert database.