Biocrude Oil Biorefinery: An Emerging Biorefining Approach

Dr Mohammad Aslam, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, Srinagar (India). He received his first Master’s degree in “Industrial Chemistry” from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (India), followed by another Master’s degree in “Fuels and combustion” from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi (India). Later, He has awarded PhD in Chemistry from the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar (India). The thesis is entitled “Hydroprocessing of Seed Oils into Transportation Fuels”. He has worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow/Research Associate/Senior Research Fellow in Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Bio-Energy (An Autonomous Institute of MNRE, Govt. of India), Punjab (India). He holds more than 16 years of academic and research experience and currently leads as Project Investigator for SERB-DST, Govt. of India sponsored R and D project in the field of “Green Fuels”. He is the Author of several international articles, books and book chapters. He is also serving as an Editorial Board Member of the American Journal of Modern Energy, USA, in addition to the reviewer of several international scientific journals. His current research is focusing on green transportation fuels derived from second and third-generation biomass feedstocks under the biorefinery concept via thermochemical conversion and their application for decarbonizing the transportation sector.

Dr Sanjeev Mishra, is working as a Scientist-D, Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Bio-Energy, (An Autonomous Institution of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Govt. of India), Kapurthala (Punjab) India. Prior to this, he worked as a Research Fellow (Postdoc) at the Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research focuses on the “Production of 3rd generation biofuels and high-value compounds from municipal, agricultural, and industrial waste via algal biorefinery approach”. He has done a Bachelor and Master of Technology in Industrial Biotechnology and has over two years of pre-PhD research experience working at national labs. During this, his research focused on lab-scale to large-scale microalgal cultivation and bioenergy production. He did his Ph.D. in Energy Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (India). The thesis entitled “Microalgal wastewater treatment, enhanced biomass productivity, and biofuel conversion under a biorefinery approach”. In addition, he has also gained international exposure by participating in the Indo-German training program at TU Berlin, Germany, through a DAAD fellowship, and presented his research findings at the “Algal Research” conference, in the USA.

Dr Jorge Arturo Aburto Anell, Head of Biomass Conversion Division & In- charge of, Division of Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, Mexican Petroleum Institute, Mexico. He holds a B.Sc. in Food Chemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); the Diplome d’Études Approfondies (DEA) and Ph.D. from the National Polytechnique Institute of Toulouse (INPT), France; and was visiting Researcher in the Agro Biotechnology Institute (IFA-Tulln) from the Agricultural University of Vienna (BOKU), Austria. He is actually the Project Leader and Head of the Biomass Conversion Division and is in charge of the Division of Energy Efficiency and Sustainability. His main research areas are bio-based chemicals and materials for applications in the petroleum industry, biomass deconstruction and conversion, production of lignocellulosic ethanol, road and aviation fuels, enzyme kinetics and applications to the oil industry, petroleum biorefining, precipitation inhibitors of asphaltenes, and petroleum pipelining through O/W emulsions. He is the Author of several international articles, book chapters, and patent applications and patents. He participated in the awarded biorefinery project by the 2016 silver prize PRODETES category recognized by Mexico’s Energy Secretariat (SENER), the World Bank and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). Likewise, He has graduated 32 Bachelor, 3 Master and 2 Doctorate students. Currently, He was in the Academic Technical Council of the Bioenergy Thematic Network sponsored by CONACyT, a technical leader in the IMP of the Mexican Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CEMIE BIO), and is currently a Level II National Researcher. He was designated Mission Innovation Champion of Mexico by the Mission Innovation Initiative in 2019 for his contribution and vision for Bioenergy science and technology in Mexico.

Dr Anil Kumar Sarma is an MSc in Chemistry (Gauhati University, India), M Tech in Energy Technology (Tezpur University, India) and PhD in Energy (Tezpur University, India) with specialization in Bioenergy. He also worked partial time as a research associate at IIT Guwahati, visiting researcher at Seikei University, Japan. He is a Scientist- E at Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Bio-Energy, Kapurthala, India who published more than 65 articles in Catalysis, Biofuel, Enzyme and applications; biomass derived catalyst and applications for biofuel synthesis. He has edited 4 books and 10 book chapters. He has guided over 20 Master’s thesis, 6 PhD thesis, and 7 postdoctoral fellows. He has completed several R &D projects on biofuel and catalysis. A few of his research projects are ongoing for biomass characterization for power plant applications as a substitute of coal. He is a recipient of outstanding research achievement awards (OIRA, 2022) from Oxford Research Awards in the field of Biofuel, Catalysis, and Applications of Biofuels in IC Engine. He is also a visiting faculty in the centre for Energy and Environment,Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar. Recently, he has extended his research horizon to activated carbon production from waste biomass such as corncob, carbon conversion to graphene and uses for fuel cell electrode fabrication, super capacitor applications etc.