Biomass, Biofuels, Biochemicals

Dr. Sunita Varjani is Scientific Officer at Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. Her major areas of research are Industrial and Environmental Microbiology/Biotechnology. She has worked as visiting scientist at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. Dr. Varjani has authored more than 110 publications, including research and review papers, books and book chapters. She has won several awards, including Young Scientist Awards from Association of Microbiologists of India, International Society for Energy, Environment and Sustainability and AFRO-ASIAN Congress on Microbes for Human and Environmental Health, New Delhi; Top Reviewer Award - 2017, Bioresource Technology, Elsevier and Best Paper Awards in national and international conferences in 2008, 2012, 2013 and 2018. She is member of editorial board of Journal of Energy and Environmental Sustainability and has served as guest editor of special issues of Bioresource Technology, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, ASCE- Journal of Environmental Engineering and others. She is Management Council Member of the BRSI (www.brsi.in). Professor Ashok Pandey is currently Executive Director, Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability-India, Lucknow. He is HSBS National Innovation Chair (Biotechnology) and is/has been Visiting/Distinguished Professor in many countries. 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. Mohammad J. Taherzadeh is professor in Biotechnology since 2004 at University of Borås in Sweden. He is also director of Resource Recovery, a research profile with about 50 researchers to convert wastes to energy and value-added products. Prof. Taherzadeh has PhD in Bioscience and MSc and Bsc in Chemical Engineering. He is working on converting wastes and residuals to ethanol, biogas, fish feed and superabsorbents, in which fermentation development using bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi has a heavy weight. Prof. Taherzadeh has more than 120 publications in scientific peer-reviewed journals, 10 book chapters and two patents about filamentous fungi. Mohammad is the panel chairman of “biotechnology, chemical technology and environmental technology” of Swedish Research Council, and also in the editorial board of Bioresource Technology and BioResources. Prof. Ngo is currently a Professor of Environmental Engineering and serving as Deputy Director of Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater, Co-Director of Joint Research Centre for Protective Infrastructure Technology and Environmental Green Bioprocess, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney. He has been duly elected as Fellow of International Water Association (FIWA) and Fellow and Lead Researcher of the International Bioprocessing Association (FIBA and LRIBA) while serving as IBA Council Member. Prof. Ngo is internationally well-known for his activities in the areas of advanced biological waste treatment technologies (e.g. membrane bioreactor, specific attached and/or suspended growth bioreactors, anaerobic digesters, wetland and bio-sorption) and membrane technologies. His expertise and practical experience also covers the areas of alternative resources, management and impacts assessment, and solid waste management. Currently, he is very active to work on the development of specific green bioprocessing technologies: resource recovery, water-waste- bioenergy nexus and greenhouse gas emission control. Prof. Ngo has been listed as Highly Cited Researcher 2019 in Cross Field Category, Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science; Elsevier - World Top 3 ranking researcher 2019 in Environmental Engineering; Lead Researcher in the field of Biotechnology in Australia. He ranks #2 in the world for number of scholarly outputs in the SciVal topic ‘membrane fouling; bioreactors; membrane bioreactors (SciVal, Feb 2020). He ranks #1 in Australia for number of scholarly outputs in the SciVal topic ‘biosorption; aqueous solution; bisorption capacity; ‘antibiotics; oxytetracycline; veterinary antibiotics’, (SciVal, Feb 2020). Prof. Ngo has published more than 500 SCI/ISI journal papers (citations >20,000), 7 books and 35 book chapters, a number of patents while receiving several highly recognized honours/awards. He has been invited to give numerous plenary/keynotes and invited talks, seminars and lecturers in the international conferences as well as the universities/research institutions. Prof. Ngo has appointed as Editor of Bioresource Technology, Elsevier, Associate Editor of Science of the Total Environment, Elsevier, Associate Editor of Water Process Engineering and Associate Editor of Heliyon Journal, Elsevier. He is also an editorial board member/guest editor of numerous international journals such as Bioresource Technology Reports, Elsevier; Environmental Nanotechnology, Monitoring and Management, Elsevier; Journal of Energy and Environmental Sustainability, IJSEES, Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, EHIT, Journal of Bioengineered, Taylor & Francis. Prof. RD Tyagi is an internationally recognized Professor of Biochemical Engineering and biotransformation. He is distinguished professor at School of technology, Huzhou University, China and chief scientific officer at BOSK Bioproducts, Canada. He held Canada Research chair (2004-20180. He also holds an adjunct professor position at the University of Missouri-Columbia, United State. Prof. Tyagi has published more than 600 papers/communications, which include 21 books, 140 book chapters, 10 research reports, 11 patents, etc. He is Associate Editor of Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic and Radioactive Waste Management ASCE and serves on the editorial board of Process Biochemistry and Bioresource Technology. He has been recognized by many national and international awards and honors. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts’. He conducts research on hazardous/solid waste management, water/wastewater treatment, wastewater sludge treatment/disposal, and bioconversion of wastewater and wastewater sludge into value-added products.