Biomass Valorization to Bioenergy

Prof. R. Praveen Kumar is working as Head of the Department in Department of Biotechnology, Arunai Engineering College. His area of research includes biorefineries, renewable energy from biomass and municipal waste. He is having more than 50 research publications, 6 book chapters, co-author of 3 books and provisional registration for 4 patents. He had organized various National and International Conferences and served as Scientific Advisory Committee member in several National and International events. He has chaired sessions and delivered invited talks in various National and International conferences. He is a life member in various professional societies which includes BRSI, IICHE, ISEES, IFIBiop, BigFin, ISTE, EWBIndia. He is serving as Management council member in Biotech Research Society of India (BRSI) and as Vice-President in "Engineers Without Borders - India (EWB-India)" Chennai chapter. He is a recipient of "ISTE-Syed Sajid Ali National Award for Outstanding Research work in the field of Renewable Energy" for the year 2017.
Dr. B. Bharathiraja an Undergraduate in Chemical Engineering and post graduate in Industrial Biotechnology and Ph.D in Biochemical Engineering from Anna University Chennai, totally 14 years of experience in teaching. His area of research includes Biofuels from biomass and municipal waste. He had published more than 70 publications in peer reviewed journals, 2 books and 7 book chapters. Served as Chief Editor of International journal of Bioprocess Technology and polymer sciences and editorial board member in various journals. International Scientific Advisory Committee member in "The 2012 Asian Biohydrogen and Bioproducts Symposium (ABBS)" conducted by Chongqing University, on November 9-12, 2012 in Chongqing, China. He has visited various countries including USA, China & Bangladesh, Hong Kong to attend international conferences. He has chaired sessions and delivered invited talks in various International conferences which include "BEST -2013, 2015 and 2017 Tiruvannamalai India". He is a life member in various professional societies which includes BRSI, IICHE, BigFin, ISTE, EFB.
Dr. Rupam Kataki is currently serving as a Professor, Department of Energy, Tezpur University, and a former Head of the Department. He received his BSc and MSc from Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat and PhD from Tezpur University. Dr. Kataki has research interests in the areas, viz. thermochemical conversion of biomass to biofuel and biochar, utilization of agricultural, agro-industrial, and waste biomass for recovery of fuels and chemicals, C-sequestration and soil amendment through biochar application, production of biodiesel, biooil, and value-added products through a biorefinery approach from indigenous tree-borne oil yielding species of NE India, Water remediation and heavy metal removal through use of engineered biochar, industrial uses of biochar, and Ecological and economical aspects of charcoal production in traditional kilns in NE India. He has to his credit about 86 publications including edited books, book chapters, journals publication and full length papers in conference proceedings. He has been in the editorial board of a number of journals including SCOPUS indexed, International Journal of Renewable Energy Development. He has reviewed for as many as 33 different journals and received Top Reviewer Award from Bioresource Technology in 2017. He is a regular reviewer of research proposals of Government funding agencies like DST, DSIR and CSIR-NISTADS. Dr Kataki is an examiner of PhD thesis of several Universities including AcSIR. He has successfully completed a number of nationally funded research projects including an Indo-European Union collaborative research project with several European and Indian PIs, and a couple of research projects are currently undergoing. He has so far supervised three doctoral students and about 33 MTech thesis. Hehas been a member of a number of scientific societies, and of committees of Government at district and state level. He is also a member of the Board of Studies of Assam Science and Technology University.
Dr. V. S. Moholkar (b. 1972) is a Full Professor of Chemical Engineering and Head of Center for Energy at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati. He received Bachelors (1993) and Masters (1996) degree in chemical engineering from Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) Mumbai, followed by Ph.D. from University of Twente in 2002. He has been Head of the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT Guwahati between 2012-2015. His main research interests are sonochemistry, cavitation assisted physical, chemical and biological processing, and thermo- and biochemical routes to biofuels. As of November 2018, he has published more than 140 papers in renowned international journals that have received more than 5000 citations (with h-index of 43). He has also filed 3 US patents (in collaboration with CTI Nanotech, CA, USA) on application of hydrodynamic cavitation reactors for biomass pretreatment and bioalcohol synthesis. He has graduated 15 Ph.D. and 26 M.Tech. students. He has been elected as Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in July 2016. He has also been elected as Fellow of Institution of Chemical Engineers, UK. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng) registered with Engineering Council of UK. He was admitted as Senior Member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (MAIChE (Sr.)) in August 2016.