Biomass, Biofuels, Biochemicals

Short CV: Ganti S. Murthy is a professor in Biological and Ecological Engineering Department at Oregon State University. He completed his B.Tech in Agricultural Engineering from NERIST, Arunachal Pradesh and M.Tech in Dairy and Food Engineering from IIT-Kharagpur, India. He then went to pursue PhD in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Univ. of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and obtained his PhD in Dec., 2006. He joined Oregon State University in 2007. Dr. Murthy’s research is broadly focused on sustainable bioprocessing. For any proposed technology or policy, Murthy group seeks to answer the question: “Is this approach technically feasible, economic viable, resource sustainable and has lower environmental impacts compared to alternatives? If not, how can we make it so.” His group employs a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches using control theory, systems biology, process modeling, economic analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) techniques to conduct molecular, cellular, industrial scale and systems level analyses of technologies to establish a sustainable bioeconomy. Recently, Murthy group has been trying to understand the nutrient-energy-water nexus at regional and global scale with particular focus on building resilience of agro-ecological systems to pulse and pressure disturbances. Edgard Gnansounou is Professor of modelling and planning of Energy Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) where he is Director of the Bioenergy and Energy Planning Research Group. His current research works comprise techno-economic and environmental assessment of bio-refinery schemes based on conversion of agricultural residues. He is leading research projects in that field in several countries including Brazil, Colombia and South Africa. Edgard Gnansounou is credited with numerous papers in high impact scientific journals. He is member of the editorial board of Bioresource Technology. He graduated with a M.S. in Civil Engineering and Ph.D. in Energy Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne. He was a visiting researcher at the Thayer College, Dartmouth School of Engineering with Professor Charles Wyman (USA), at Polytech of Clermont-Ferrand, University Blaise Pascal (France) and at the Center of Biofuels, the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Trivandrum (India). He was also a visiting Professor of the African University of Science of Technology (Abuja, Nigeria). He is a citizen of Benin (Africa) and Switzerland. Professor Ashok Pandey is Deputy Director at CSIR’s National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology at Trivandrum and heading the Centre for Biofuels and Biotechnology Division there. Professor Pandey’s research interests are on bio-based economy development (biomass-based biorefinery) for the production of fuels and chemicals. He has >1000 publications/communications, which include 14 patents & design copyright, 34 books, 100 book chapters, 380 original and review papers, etc with h index of 62 and >16,800 citation (Goggle scholar). Dr. Samir Kumar Khanal is a Professor of Biological Engineering at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Previously, he was a post-doctoral research associate and Research Assistant Professor at Iowa State University for 6 years. Dr. Khanal obtained Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a focus in Environmental Biotechnology from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong in 2002. He obtained in M.S. in environmental engineering from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand in 1997. Dr. Khanal is a leading researcher, internationally in the field of anaerobic digestion, waste-to-resources and environmental biotechnology. Dr. Khanal, to date, has published over 90 refereed papers in high quality international journals. He also delivered over 90 keynote/invited presentation internationally. In addition, he also wrote and published a book entitled “Anaerobic Biotechnology for Bioenergy Production: Principles and Applications” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). Dr. Khanal edited another book, as the Lead Editor, entitled “Bioenergy and Biofuel from Biowastes and Biomass” (American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2010). Both books have become the best-sellers in the respective field. Recently he also published a bioenergy textbook entitled Bioenergy: Principles and Application (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016). He has supervised 11 Ph.D., 16 M.S., 17 undergraduate and 12 high school students, 13 post-docs and 14 visiting scholars. Dr. Khanal is also an editorial board member of the highly prestigious international journal, Bioresource Technology and Korean Journal of Environmental Engineering. He is also a recipient of CTAHR Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research (2016), University of Hawaii at Manoa. Dr. Khanal is a professional engineer (environmental engineering) in the state of Iowa. Professor Ashok Pandey is currently Distinguished Scientist at the Centre for Innovation and Translational Research, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, India. His major research and technological development interests are industrial & environmental biotechnology and energy biosciences, focusing on biomass to biofuels & chemicals, waste to wealth & energy, etc. He has 16 patents, edited 125 books, and authored over 1000 papers and book chapters.

1. Systems Analysis: Historical background
2. Techno-economic Analysis
3. Environmental Impacts
4. Environmental Risk Analysis
5. Resource Sustainability
6. Policy, Governance and Social Aspects
7. Resilience Thinking
8. General Logic-Based Method for Assessing the Greenness of Products and Systems

Part II: Applications and Case studies
9. Biofuels in US (Bioethanol first and second generation)
10. Solar and Wind Energy in India
11. Solar and Wind Energy in US
12. Biofuels, Biopolymers and Bioproducts in India
13. Solar and Wind Energy in Europe
14. Renewable Energy and Decentralized Fertilizer Production
15. Regional Strategy of Advanced Biofuels for Transportation in West Africa
16. Advanced Biofuels for Transportation in West Africa: Common Referential State-Based Strategies
17. Semantic Sustainability Characterization: A Case Study
18. Solid Biofuels
19. Potential Value-added Products from Wineries Residues