Biofuels : Alternative Feedstocks and Conversion Processes for the Production of Liquid and Gaseous Biofuels

Prof. Ashok Pandey is currently Executive Director, Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability-India, Lucknow. His major research and technological development interests are industrial and environmental biotechnology and energy biosciences, focusing on biomass to biofuels and chemicals, waste to wealth and energy, etc.

Prof Christian Larroche is former Director of Polytech Clermont, a graduate school of engineering of University Clermont-Auvergne, France. He is also member of the research laboratory Institut Pascal and of the laboratory of excellence ImobS3 at the same university. He has strong research skills and expertise in the area of applied microbiology and biochemical engineering. He is author of about 300 documents, including ~150 articles, three patents, 16 book chapters and 35 co-editions of books or journal special issues. He is member of French Society for Process Engineering (SFGP), of the French Society of Biotechnology and of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering. He is also administrator of IBA-IFIBiop and editor of Journal of Food Sciences and Technology.

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 Mānoa. 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.

Prof Claude-Gilles DUSSAP is graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toulouse in 1978. He did her PhD degree in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, focusing on development of bioreactor at the University Blaise Pascal (Clermont-Ferrand). He is presently head of the team Chemical and Biochemical Engineering in the Institut Pascal (University Blaise Pascal -- CNRS). He has been much involved in the analysis of the relationships, which exist between the physiological responses of microorganisms and bioreactors environment. This includes insightful investigation in metabolic engineering (metabolic fluxes distribution, control and regulation of metabolism) and thorough analysis of bioreactor performances regarding the mass, heat, light-energy transfer and mixing properties of reactors. He has a strong experience in mathematical modelling of biological kinetics, thermodynamical equilibrium properties of aqueous solutions and of reactor characteristics. He has a track record experience in the design and the mathematical modelling of MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) ecosystem, which is the biological life support system developed by European Spatial Agency (ESA) for long duration spatial missions. His main domain of expertise covers all the process engineering aspects of the bioreactors design, modelling, scale-up and control in relation with the food quality and nutritional properties of food recipes for spationauts. He has been in charge of the definition of Life Support issues in the European framework program AURORA. He is member of the evaluation committee of European Science Fondation. His main research activities concern Chemical engineering; Metabolic engineering: metabolic fluxes calculation; Mass and energy transfer modelling and assessment of coupling with metabolic limitations; Applied thermodynamics (modelling of equilibrium properties); and Thermokinetic modelling and application of Thermodynamic of Irreversible Processes to biotransformations.

His interests have been extended to bioenergy production processes and assessment of environmental impact of biotechnology processes regarding 2G and 3G biofuels. The results of these research works have been published in 150 papers. He has supervised 25 PhD students and 70 MSc lab works.