Biofuels and Bioenergy

Dr. Miguel Nuno Miranda received the degree in Energetic Engineering (University Autonomous of Lisbon) in 1998 and the Ph.D. degree in Environmental Science (University of Aveiro) in 2009, Portugal. Dr. Miguel Miranda has authored more than 60 scientific works (including chapters, papers in international journals and book of proceedings, and poster presentations) and serves as Editorial Board Member of several scientific journals as well as Organizing Committee Member in International Conferences. His main research interests include waste management through thermochemical conversion processes (pyrolysis, gasification and hydrothermal liquefaction), production of fuels and biofuels and solar energy concentration (SEC) solutions towards the production of solar fuels.

His main research interests include waste management through thermochemical conversion processes (pyrolysis, gasification and hydrothermal liquefaction), production of fuels and biofuels and solar energy concentration (SEC) solutions towards the production of solar fuels.

DORA FOTI is Associate Professor of Structural Engineering at the Polytechnic of Bari. She has given courses in Structural Engineering, Elements of Earthquake Engineering, Design of Bridges for Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering. She has given lectures and seminars in numerous training courses as well as at universities and research institutes both in Italy and outside Italy. She is the author of over 150 scientific publications in the field of Structural Engineering and Materials, where she developed mainly the issues related to the seismic behavior of structures, dynamic identification of historical masonry buildings and innovative composite materials. She is coordinator of several national and international scientific projects.

developing the themes of passive protection of structures, gruond-structure interaction effects, fiber-reinforced structures, identification of existing structures.

Bulent ICGEN received his MSc. and PhD. in Biotechnology at Middle East Technical University (METU) of Ankara in 1994 and 2000, respectively. He conducted two-year-post-doctoral research at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Bioprocess Engineering Research Unit of University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. In 2008, he became an Associate Professor and took up a faculty position at Kirikkale University (KU) till 2012. Since then, he has been a faculty at METU in the Department of Environmental Engineering. He became a Professor in 2017. Meanwhile, as a visiting faculty, he visited Princeton University (PU) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) in 2011 and 2015, respectively. His interests lie in the fascinating and often complex array of processes taking place in microbial environment and the behaviour of the microorganisms under different environmental conditions. He particularly enjoys looking at systems from environmental and microbial biotechnology perspective, trying to tease out the key relationships between consortiums. He likes using molecular biological methods to investigate the occurrence and distribution of bacteria in the environment in order to provide direct information on community structure for variety of environmental and industrial applications. His team focuses on microbial biotechnology, with a recent focus on environmental genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics.

 Environmental sustainability through bioremediation of contaminated environments  Bacterial degradation & transformation & detoxification of xenobiotic compounds  Structural and functional diversity of microbial communities in contaminated environments  Molecular genetic tools to assess the effects of microbial treatment on anthropogenic chemicals  Biomonitoring of waterborne pathogens & toxic metals & drug resistance genes as contaminants  Biomarkers & bioindicators & DNA probes & FISH for in situ microbial activity monitoring  Metabolic engineering & catabolic genes & biocatalytic applications for pollutant degradation  Biotechnological processes for aerobic & anaerobic waste treatment  Environmental genomics & metabolomics & transcriptomics & proteomics

Kaveh Ostad-Ali-Askari is a Ph.D. of Civil Engineering,Faculty of Civil Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. His interested topics including Groundwater Hydrology, Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, Sustainable Development and Environmental Assessment, Climate and Integrated and Sustainable Water Resource Management, Water System Engineering, Water Resources Planning, Artificial Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm. He has contributed to more than 194 publications in Journals, Books, or as Technical Reports. Currently, he is as Faculty Member of Department of Civil Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Iran.

His interested topics including Groundwater Hydrology, Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, Sustainable Development and Environmental Assessment, Climate and Integrated and Sustainable Water Resource Management, Water System Engineering, Water Resources Planning, Artificial Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm.

Jaroslaw Krzywanski is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science at Jan Dlugosz University in Czestochowa, Poland. He received the M.Sc. degree from Czestochowa University of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Institute of Thermal Machinery, Poland and Ph.D. degree from Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Energy and Environmental Engineering, Poland. He has published more than 100 papers in journals, books and conference proceedings refereed papers and serves as an editorial board member of several international journals. He has participated in the scientific committee of several conferences and serves as a reviewer in a wide range of international journals. He is interested in modeling of energy objects and processes, including gas emissions and hydrogen production from biomass combustion and gasification, respectively. He uses both programmed and AI methods to predict pollutants emissions from biomass co-combustion in large-scale circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boilers, chemical looping combustion (CLC) of biomass in a pilot-scale fluidized bed (FB) systems as well as the H2 concentration in syngas during the hydrogen production via CaO sorption enhanced anaerobic gasification of sawdust in a laboratory-scale FB systems.

He uses both programmed and AI methods to predict pollutants emissions from biomass co-combustion in large-scale circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boilers, chemical looping combustion (CLC) of biomass in a pilot-scale fluidized bed (FB) systems as well as the H2 concentration in syngas during the hydrogen production via CaO sorption enhanced anaerobic gasification of sawdust in a laboratory-scale FB systems

Maulin P. Shah, currently Chief Scientist & Head – Industrial Waste Water Research Lab, Division of Applied and Environmental Microbiology Lab at Enviro Technology Ltd., Ankleshwar, Gujarat, India, received his Ph.D. (2002-2005) in Environmental Microbiology from Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat. He has served as an Assistant Professor at Godhra, Gujarat University in 2001. He is a Microbial Biotechnologist with diverse research interest. A group of research scholars is working under his guidance on the areas ranging from Applied Microbiology, Environmental Biotechnology, Bioremediation, and Industrial Liquid Waste Management to solid state fermentation. My primary interest is the environment, the quality of our living resources and the ways that bacteria can help to manage and degrade toxic wastes and restore environmental health. Consequently, I am very interested in genetic adaptation processes in bacteria, the mechanisms by which they deal with toxic substances, how they react to pollution in general and how we can apply microbial processes in a useful way (like bacterial bioreporters). One of our major interests is to study how bacteria evolve and adapt to use organic pollutants as novel growth substrates. Bacteria with new degradation capabilities are often selected in polluted environments and have accumulated small (mutations) and large genetic changes (transpositions, recombination, and horizontally transferred elements). His work has been focused to assess the impact of industrial pollution on microbial diversity of wastewater following cultivation dependant and cultivation independent analysis. His major work involves isolation, screening, identification and Genetic Engineering of high impact of Microbes for the degradation of hazardous materials. He has more than 200 research publication in highly reputed national and international journals. He directs the Research program at Enviro Technology Ltd., Ankleshwar. He has guided more than 100 Post Graduate students in various disciplines of Life Science. He is an active Editorial Board Member in more than 150 highly reputed Journal’s in the field of Environmental & Biological Sciences. He was Founder Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Environmental Bioremediation and Biodegradation (2012-2014) as well as Journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2012-2014) (Science and Education Publishing, USA). He is also serving as a reviewer in various journals of national and international repute. Recently, he has been awarded as a Young Biotechnologist Medal by Biotechnological Society of Nepal”. He is Associate Editor in BMC Microbiology (Springer Nature), Advisory Board in CLEAN-Soil, Air, Water (Wiley), Editor in Current Pollution Reports (Springer Nature), Editor in Bulletin of Environmental Contamination & Toxicology (Springer Nature), Editor in Environmental Technology & Innovation-ELSEVIER, Editor in Current Microbiology-Springer Nature, Editor in Journal of Biotechnology & Biotechnological Equipment-Taylor & Francis, Editor in Ecotoxicology (Microbial Ecotoxicology)- Springer Nature.

General microbiology, applied microbiology, environmental microbiology, waste water microbiology, fermentation microbiology, molecualr microbiology, biochemical engineering, molecular genetics, cellular microbiology, bio-remediation, bio-degradation, environmental toxicology

Mr. Muhammad Usman, Former Director General of Agricultural Research System, Govt. of Pakistan who retired from service after a spotless career of about 32 years (from Jan 4, 1977 to Feb 2, 2009) with senior level experience work on the research and development of integrated agricultural industries like livestock and dairy development, aquaculture and fishery, apiculture and poultry, crops, seed and bioenergy on a sustainable way.

Basically, Mr. Usman is an Agricultural scientist, specialized himself on the improvement and advance breeding methodology of food and feed legumes from (ICARDA) from March – June 1990 at Aleppo- Syria, release several varieties and has more than 60 publications.

Dr. Lew Christopher holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology. He has more than 25 years of industrial and academic experience in the field of industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass. He has worked as industrial research scientist and held faculty positions in departments of biotechnology, chemical and biological engineering, and environmental engineering in South Africa and USA. Currently he serves as Director of the Biorefining Research Institute leading an interdisciplinary team of faculty and researchers from several science and engineering departments at Lakehead University in Canada. His research mission is to add value to the global Bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach to the development of renewable bioenergy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies. He has made over 400 scientific contributions to the field of Biomass Biorefining including 8 patents, 4 books, and over 50 invited lectures delivered in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.

His research mission is to add value to the global Bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach to the development of renewable bioenergy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies.

Dr. Weilan Shao holds a Master degree in Plant Disease and a Ph.D. degree in Microbiology. She has participated in the field of the thermophilic degradation and fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass since her PhD study (1990-1993) in the University of Georgia, USA. Dr. Shao has worked as a distinguished professor in Jiangnan University, Nanjing normal University and Jiangsu University in China. Her research mission is to develop feasible and economic effective approaches for renewable bioenergy processing by using molecular biotechnology. Dr. Shao and her group have discovered a series of novel lignocellulases, the key aldehyde dehydrogenase for ethanol formation, the repressor/operator system coupling glycolysis and fermentation pathways, and the regulation mechanism of thermophilic ethanol fermentation. Dr Shao also invents new techniques for industrial enzyme production and modification, which include pHsh gene expression system (US patent), in situ gene random mutagenesis (CN patent; US patent), high production of thermostable laccase (CN patent), soluble expression of aggregation-pron enzymes, and gfa selection marker for the bio-safety of gene transfer in microbes.

Her current research is mainly focused on the metabolic engineering of extreme thermophiles for cellulosic ethanol fermentation, the development of novel gene expression and evolution techniques for an efficient industrial enzyme production, and the exploration and construction of highly active and thermostable enzymes for the biodegradation of lignocelluloses.

Dr. Rintu Banerjee is an professor at Agricultural & Food Engineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Her Research Areas maily focuses on Food Biotechnology, Bioenergy, Enzymology & its Biotechnological applications, Protein Chemistry. She has achieved many Awards & Honours. She has done many International and National publications in the Journals. She has gone through scientific research areas and some scientific projects too.

Her Research Areas maily focuses on Food Biotechnology, Bioenergy, Enzymology & its Biotechnological applications, Protein Chemistry.

With a masters degree as an Agricultural Biologist and as a trained farmer Michael Köttner is professionally involved in Biogas and Bioenergy Technology for more than 25 years. His portfolio ranges from professional services as a scientist and farmer in USA and South Africa, adult education, to being a founding member and CEO (1992 – 2000) in Europes biggest biogas association, the German Biogas Association with almost 5000 members today. Since 2000 he is consultant, senior expert, as well as managing director of the International Biogas and Bioenergy Center of Competence (IBBK Fachgruppe Biogas GmbH) and Vice-President of the German Biogas and Bioenergy Society, GERBIO/FnBB e.V.. The main focus of his work is consulting and training work in the field of industrial and small scale decentralized biogas technology with manure, plant oil for energy production, wood gas (gasification, pyrolysis) and ecological sanitation in a regional, national and international context.

The main focus of his work is consulting and training work in the field of industrial and small scale decentralized biogas technology with manure, plant oil for energy production, wood gas (gasification, pyrolysis) and ecological sanitation in a regional, national and international context.

Yulin Deng received his Ph.D. at Manchester University, United Kingdom in 1992. After he worked as a postdoc research fellow at McMaster University in Canada, he was appointed as an assistant professor at Institute of Paper Science and technology (IPST) in 1995, and promoted to associate professor in 1998. He was moved to Georgia institute of Technology in 2003, and promoted as a full professor in 2008. Dr. Deng is a Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science, and hold a James C. Barber Faculty Fellow position at Georgia Institute of Technology. He received AIChE Chase Award in 2013. He is a member of ACS, AIChE and TAPPI. He is also an associate editor of 2 journals, and serves as the editorial board member for another 5 journals. He published more than 250 peer reviewed papers covering the areas of bioenergy, biomass, biofuel, fuel cell, nanosceince and nanotechnology, and nanoelectronics.

Bioenergy, biomass, biofuel, fuel cell, nanosceince and nanotechnology, and nanoelectronics

Doctoral degree of Moscow State university. He worked as Senior researcher Armenian Institute of Agriculture and Technological Institute of Amino Acids of USSR, director of Armenian Institute of Biotechnology, director of Yerevan Vitamin plant and deputy director of Nairit Chloroprene Rubber plant. Sole founder of Research & Industry Centre of Photosynthesizing Organisms, Feed Additives & Physiologically Active Compounds; Expert of EU Horizon 2020, ERA.NET and International Cooperation programs and Council of Chemistry and Petrochemistry of CIS countries. Academic Member of the Greece ATINER Academia, Member of American Chemical Society and Society of Chemical Industry (USA), Member of Editorial Boards of the journals: “Journal of Chemical, Environmental and Biological Engineering" (USA), SM Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering" (USA) and “Modern Management Forum” (Singapore). Laureate of “The International Presidents Award for Iconic Achievement” and “Top 100 Professionals” (IBC, England), "The Albert Einstein Award for Excellence" (Top 50 Geniuses of World, ABI, USA), Marquis Who's Who “2017 Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award” (USA), awards of the Armenia and former USSR

System biology, Environmental Science. Its environmental building recommendations of the “THEORY OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT BASED ON THE USE OF MICROALGAE IN BIO AND INDUSTRIAL CYCLES. NEW DESIGN AND BUILDING OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEM” (Amazon) aimed towards new environmental policies and development of Live Conserve Industry and management changing decisions with the promotion of solutions for large-scale mitigation GHG emission, waste, generating of O2 and manufacturing of advanced biofuel as well as value-added products. It is a principal step from the non-efficient protection of the environment to its cultivation which opens an important shift towards a new design and building of a biological system.

Dr. Janzhong Sun, is a Director of Biofuels Institute of Jiangsu University, China. He is also an Distinguished Professor, Graduate faculty for Ph.D. students. He has served his role as Vice dean, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, China. Also an Adjunct professor, Dept. of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, USA. Also Vice president, China Energy Association, P. R. China. Also Standing executive committee, China Energy and Environmental Technology Association.

1. Nature-inspired Technology for Biomass Conversion Interested in biomimetic/nature-inspired technologies from wood-feeding animals (e.g. termites, cow) or other biological conversion systems for efficient biomass conversion towards high value-added biorefinery products; exploring valuable extremophile bacteria and gut symbionts identified from wood-feeding animals for efficient biomass conversion, novel biomass pretreatment technology, and the breakthrough technology in bioreactor designs with biomimetic processing. 2. Grassy Energy Crops and Cultivation Technology Interested in cultivar development (cross breeding/polyploidy breeding) for energy crops, such as Miscanthus, Pennisetum Purpureum and hybrid Pennisetum; Genetic transformation of grassy energy plants with exogenous thermophilic lignocellulosic enzyme genes; Key techniques of high-value added products from agricultural residues; Development of salt-resistant grassy energy crops and their resistance mechanism; Plant endophytes and their industrial applications as microbial fertilizers. 3. Gene Engineering/Enzymatic Engineering Interested in screening novel gene sequences for biomass degradation; Cloning and sequence optimization of thermophilic lignocellulose enzyme genes and their high-efficiency expression; Non-rational design and in situ directed evolution technology and its applications in high-throughput screening of mutant genes; Refining pHsh-heat shock expression system and its application; Developing biological safety high-density fermentation technology for high enzymes production. 4. Environmental Bio-electrochemistry Interested in the mechanism of extracellular electron transfer and its manipulation, microbial fuel cell and its energy harvesting technology from organic pollutants, and biodegradation of emerging new pollutants, bio-sensing environmental monitoring. 5. Bio-based Materials and Fiber Composites Interested in developing advanced functional bio-based materials, including eco-friendly lignocellulose/polymer composites, thermal insulation lignocellulose composite foams, cellulose-based materials for energy storage, anti-bacteria, and adsorption, lignocellulose hydrogels, functional nano-lignocellulose particles, 3D printing materials developed from biomass and other advanced bio-based materials.

Degree in Engineering and PhD in Physics of Matter at Politecnico di Torino. Full Professor of Physics of Matter at Politecnico di Torino. In 1999 he was the founder of the Materials and Microsystems Labs (CHI-LAB) of Politecnico di Torino. He is Director of the Lab with a Research Staff working in the field of micro-technologies and nano-science (http://www.polito.it/micronanotech). Since 2003 he is Coordinator, for the Polytechnic of Turin, of the International Master of Science in Micro and Nanotechnologies for Integrated Systems (POLITO, INP Grenoble, EPF Losanne: http://www.master-nanotech.com/). Since 2005 he is Coordinator of the National MIUR Excellence Laboratory “LATEMAR” funded by FIRB 2003 call (http://www.latemar.polito.it/). From March 2011 to May 2016 he was Director of the Center for Space Human Robotics of the Italian Institute of Technology (http://shr.iit.it ). From May 2016 he is Senior Scientist and P.I. of “Advanced Materials Lab” at Italian Institute of Technology (https://www.iit.it/lines/advanced-materials)

- Nanotechnologies applied to biological systems (in particular sensors, lab on chip and organ on chip) - Graphene and 2D materials for energy, bioenergy and environment (solar cells, supercapacitors, microbial fuel cells) - Nanomaterials for microelectronics - Nanomaterials and nanostructures for CO2 trapping and reduction - Multifunctional nanocomposites for 3D printing

Dr. Janzhong Sun, is a Director of Biofuels Institute of Jiangsu University, China. He is also an Distinguished Professor, Graduate faculty for Ph.D. students. He has served his role as Vice dean, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, China. Also an Adjunct professor, Dept. of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, USA. Also Vice president, China Energy Association, P. R. China. Also Standing executive committee, China Energy and Environmental Technology Association.

1. Nature-inspired Technology for Biomass Conversion Interested in biomimetic/nature-inspired technologies from wood-feeding animals (e.g. termites, cow) or other biological conversion systems for efficient biomass conversion towards high value-added biorefinery products; exploring valuable extremophile bacteria and gut symbionts identified from wood-feeding animals for efficient biomass conversion, novel biomass pretreatment technology, and the breakthrough technology in bioreactor designs with biomimetic processing. 2. Grassy Energy Crops and Cultivation Technology Interested in cultivar development (cross breeding/polyploidy breeding) for energy crops, such as Miscanthus, Pennisetum Purpureum and hybrid Pennisetum; Genetic transformation of grassy energy plants with exogenous thermophilic lignocellulosic enzyme genes; Key techniques of high-value added products from agricultural residues; Development of salt-resistant grassy energy crops and their resistance mechanism; Plant endophytes and their industrial applications as microbial fertilizers. 3. Gene Engineering/Enzymatic Engineering Interested in screening novel gene sequences for biomass degradation; Cloning and sequence optimization of thermophilic lignocellulose enzyme genes and their high-efficiency expression; Non-rational design and in situ directed evolution technology and its applications in high-throughput screening of mutant genes; Refining pHsh-heat shock expression system and its application; Developing biological safety high-density fermentation technology for high enzymes production. 4. Environmental Bio-electrochemistry Interested in the mechanism of extracellular electron transfer and its manipulation, microbial fuel cell and its energy harvesting technology from organic pollutants, and biodegradation of emerging new pollutants, bio-sensing environmental monitoring. 5. Bio-based Materials and Fiber Composites Interested in developing advanced functional bio-based materials, including eco-friendly lignocellulose/polymer composites, thermal insulation lignocellulose composite foams, cellulose-based materials for energy storage, anti-bacteria, and adsorption, lignocellulose hydrogels, functional nano-lignocellulose particles, 3D printing materials developed from biomass and other advanced bio-based materials.

Dr. Nhuan (John) Nghiem holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of New South Wales and a PhD also in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana State University. He has more than 30 years of experience in industrial and government research laboratories. His past and current research activities focused on development of commercially feasible bioprocesses for production of fuels and chemicals from renewable resources. While at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) he was a member of the team consisting of researchers from several U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratories and an industrial partner that developed and patented the technology for biological production of succinic acid by genetically engineered Escherichia coli strains in a two-stage fermentation process. The technology won one of the R&D 100 awards in 1997. He currently is a Lead Scientist in the Sustainable Biofuels and Co-products Research Unit at the Eastern Regional Research Center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, where he is leading the effort to convert all components of the sorghum plant to fuels and industrial chemicals.

Dr. Nghiem’s current interests include pretreatment and subsequent conversion of lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks to fuels and chemicals, and capture and use of fermentation-derived carbon dioxide as feedstock in bioconversion processes.

Degree in Engineering and PhD in Physics of Matter at Politecnico di Torino. Full Professor of Physics of Matter at Politecnico di Torino. In 1999 he was the founder of the Materials and Microsystems Labs (CHI-LAB) of Politecnico di Torino. He is Director of the Lab with a Research Staff working in the field of micro-technologies and nano-science (http://www.polito.it/micronanotech). Since 2003 he is Coordinator, for the Polytechnic of Turin, of the International Master of Science in Micro and Nanotechnologies for Integrated Systems (POLITO, INP Grenoble, EPF Losanne: http://www.master-nanotech.com/). Since 2005 he is Coordinator of the National MIUR Excellence Laboratory “LATEMAR” funded by FIRB 2003 call (http://www.latemar.polito.it/). From March 2011 to May 2016 he was Director of the Center for Space Human Robotics of the Italian Institute of Technology (http://shr.iit.it ). From May 2016 he is Senior Scientist and P.I. of “Advanced Materials Lab” at Italian Institute of Technology (https://www.iit.it/lines/advanced-materials)

- Nanotechnologies applied to biological systems (in particular sensors, lab on chip and organ on chip) - Graphene and 2D materials for energy, bioenergy and environment (solar cells, supercapacitors, microbial fuel cells) - Nanomaterials for microelectronics - Nanomaterials and nanostructures for CO2 trapping and reduction - Multifunctional nanocomposites for 3D printing