Valorization of Wastes for Sustainable Development

Dr. Rangabhashiyam Selvasembian currently working as Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Sciences, SRM University-AP, India. Previously worked in the Department of Biotechnology, School of Chemical & Biotechnology, SASTRA Deemed University, India. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from National Institute of Technology Calicut, India. He was awarded Post-Doctoral Fellowship by Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, 2015, Germany. He was further awarded the National-Post Doctoral Fellowship from SERB-DST, 2016-2018, India. Dr Selvasembian was awarded as Young Scientist by DST, India for the BRICS Conclave held in Durban, 2018, South Africa and was the recepient of Hiyoshi Young Leaf Award from Hiyoshi Ecological Services, Hiyoshi Corporation, 2018, Japan. His major research interests are bioremediation and waste water treatment. He is Editorial Board Member in Separation & Purification Reviews, Scientific Reports, Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery and Environmental Management. He is also serving as Associate Editor in International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, IET Nanobiotechnology, Frontiers in Environmental Chemistry and also as an Academic Editor for Adsorption Science and Technology. He has published more than 100 peer reviewed interna tional research articles and contributed several book chapters. He is editing books from prestigious publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley, CRC and Springer. Recently Dr Selvasembian was listed in Top 2% most cited research scientist in the world as per data published by Stanford University USA. Dr. Nur Izyan Wan Azelee is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) under the Department of Bioprocess and Polymer Engineering. She is also an associate research fellow in the Institute of Bioproduct Development (IBD), UTM. Currently she holds a position as the Head of Laboratory for Bioprocess Teaching Lab at the faculty and the Head of Cosmeceutical and Fragrance Laboratory in IBD. She has obtained her bachelor degree as well as completed her Ph.D in Bioprocess Engineering, both from UTM. She has received Post-Doctoral Fellowship from UTM, Malaysia for a project on Valorization of Agricultural Waste for Sugar Production. Her research expertise is on enzyme technology, enzyme immobilization, carbohydrate analysis, biomass pretreatment, biomass conversion, bioprocess optimization, enzyme kinetics and biomass for cosmetics. Currently she is working on several biorefinery projects specifically bioconversion of biomass which include agricultural waste and marine biomass into valuable ingredients for various applications including cosmeceutical products as well as biofuel. She is currently active providing several training courses and consultations to the government and private sectors in the field of biomass conversion and bioproducts. She has received 12 research grants as project leader and 22 research grants as project member from the university level, national level and several research contract grants from R&D based companies for product developments. She has published more than 68 research articles in peer-reviewed International Journals including several book chapters in Elsevier, Springer Nature, CRC Press, Academic Press and UTM Press. She has taken part as an active reviewer to numerous reputable and high impact journals and also act as a managing editor for Journal of Bioprocessing and Biomass Technology under the UTM Press, She has supervised many Masters and Ph.D students as main and co-supervisor. She has filed several Intellectual Properties including several copyrights and trade secrets. Dr. Saravanan Ramiah Shanmugam is currently working as Assistant Research Professor in Biosystems Engineering Department at Auburn University, Alabama, USA. He has previously worked as a DST Inspire Faculty in the School of Chemical and Biotechnology, SASTRA Deemed University, India. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He has worked as an Associate Scientist in AgraCity Crop & Nutrition Ltd., Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada. During his tenure he has registered two biofertilizer products towards commercialization and submitted the dossier for three other products to Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). He has received Post-Doctoral Fellowship from Auburn University, Alabama, USA. He has received numerous research grants such as Alabama Agricultural Experimental Station (AAES)- SEED grant, Auburn University Intramural Grants Program and Ocean University of China (OUC)- Auburn University (AU) grants program. Currently, he has received a Core Research Grant from DST and has also completed another DST grant (DST Inspire Faculty Fellowship). He is currently involved with industry projects from Chameleon Speciality Chemicals, UK, EID Parry Nutraceuticals Pvt. Ltd. and CUB CSR funded work. He has also founded a start-up “ENVIROHIL Solutions” and currently incubated at ABLEST-TBI, SASTRA. The start-up focuses on converting organic wastes into food, fuel, fertilizer and a variety of products such as grease, soaps and shoe polish. His major research interests are biofuels production, wastewater treatment, nutrient and energy recovery from waste streams and biopolymer production. He has published more than 28 research articles in peer-reviewed International Journals and 4 book chapters including one in Elsevier. Dr. Ponnusami is at present working as Associate Dean in the School of Chemical and Biotechnology, SASTRA Deemed University, India. He did the doctoral research on textile effluent treatment at SASTRA Deemed University, India. His post-doctoral research includes wastewater treatment by physico-chemical treatments, lignocellulose degradation, bioprocessing for the production of enzymes and microbial polysaccharides, and biodiesel production. Towards achieving the goals of sustainable development his team is exploring the uses of green methods in biorefining of biomass. In particular, bioconversion of biomass into microbial exopolysaccharides such as levan, xantham gum, dextran, cellulose that are suitable for food and medical treatments are investigated. As far as renewable fuels are concerned we mainly work on process development for biodiesel and bioethanol from various agricultural and industrial waste products. The group is interested in developing chemical and biocatalysts for above-mentioned conversion processes. Prof. Ponnusami is included in the list of top 2% highly cited researchers’ published by Elsevier, consecutively for the past two years (2021 and 2022). Dr. Ajay Kumar Mishra MSc, MPhil, PhD, CSci, FRSC working as Professor at Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Besides Prof Mishra is also working as Director: Academy of Nanotechnology and Waste Water Innovations (ANWWI), South Africa and Visiting Professor at Robert Gordon University, UK, Bashir State University, Russia and Adjunct Professor at Hebei University of Science and Technology and Jiangsu University, China. He is actively serving as Chair of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council, South Africa Chapter since 2016. Prof Mishra has published more than 400 papers in international journals/conferences, books/book chapters and others. He graduated 13 PhD, 22 Master students and hosted more than 10 postdoctoral fellows/scientist globally. He was awarded a number of international awards including Top 2% most cited scientist in the world for year 2019-2022 and Chancellor prize (2020) & many more. He is editor and editorial board member of many peer reviewed journals and scientific societies, conferences/workshops.