circular bioeconomy perspectives in sustainable bioenergy production

Dr. Gurunathan Baskar: Dr. Gurunathan Baskar has 24 years of teaching and research experience, published more than 200 research and review articles in reputed National and International Journals, 37 book chapters and edited 6 books in various fields of Biotechnology. He is Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India) and International Society for Energy Environment and Sustainability; Active Life Member of various national and international professional bodies; listed in top 2% Scientist in the world consecutively in 2020, 2021 and 2022 by Elsevier BV and Stanford University, USA; and received Bestowed ISTE-Periyar Best Engineering College Teacher Award 2020 from Indian Society for Technical Education-Tamil Nadu Section, Prof. S. B. Chincholkar Memorial Award 2019 from Biotech Research Society, India, for the outstanding work in the area of Biofuels and Food Biotechnology, ISTE-Syed Sajid Ali National Award 2016 for his outstanding research on renewable energy from Indian Society for Technical Education, New Delhi, and Young Scientist Award 2015 from International Bioprocessing Association, France. He has been actively researching for creating sustainable bioenergy solutions while contributing toward a greener and circular bioeconomy environment.

Dr. Veeramuthu Ashokkumar received his Ph.D. from the University of Madras, Chennai, India, in 2014. During his Ph.D. period, he was awarded an Indo-Australian fellowship and visited Adelaide University, Australia, as a visiting scientist. He received his M.Phil. and M.Sc. in Plant Biotechnology from Indian universities. Currently, he is working as a professor at Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMATS), Saveetha University, Chennai, India. He was the visiting professor at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. He worked as a postdoctoral scientist in Microalgal Biorefinery at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Technology Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia. Also, he worked as a postdoctoral scientist at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. He was also a visiting scientist and visited European Universities under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship scheme.

Dr. Samuel Lalthazuala Rokhum: Dr. Samuel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology Silchar, Silchar. His research interests encompass synthetic chemistry, heterogeneous catalysis, green chemistry, and biofuel synthesis. Dr. Rokhum has completed two SERB-funded research projects and currently running projects funded by CSIR and DST. He has so far published 99 papers in journals of international repute and has authored and edited two books published by Wiley, UK. In addition, he has delivered a lecture at several national and international conferences and has been granted a German patent.

Dr. Vijayanand Suryakant Moholkar (b. 1972) is Professor (HAG) of Chemical Engineering and Adjunct Faculty at School of Energy Science and Engineering (erstwhile Centre for Energy) at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He has been Head of the Chemical Engineering Department, IIT Guwahati between 2012 and 2015, and Head of Centre for Energy, IIT Guwahati between 2017 and 2020. His main research interests are sonochemistry, cavitation assisted physical, chemical, and biological processing, and thermo and biochemical routes to biofuels. As of January 2023, he has published more than 200 papers in renowned international journals that have received more than 11000 citations (with h-index of 62 and i-10 index of 182). He is Co-inventor of 3 US patents (issued to CTI Nanotech, CA, USA) on application of hydrodynamic cavitation reactors for biomass pretreatment and bioalcohol synthesis.