Biofuels and Bioenergy

Biography

Prof. Sudip Rakshit is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Bioenergy and Biorefining processes attached to the Biorefining Research Institute and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Lakehead University, Canada. He completed his PhD program from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi India, were a pilot plant for the production of 100 litres of absolute of bioethanol per day was set up in 1987. He subsequently joined the Chemical Engineering faculty of IIT, Madras. In 1995, he joined the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) as a Professor in Food Engineering and Bioprocess Technology. He served at the VP Research for the institute from 2005 to 2012, before moving to Canada. He has supervised more than a 100 graduate students and has more than 120 publications in international peer reviewed journals.

Research Interest

The overall focus of Dr. Rakshit’s present research is in the area of production of value added platform chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass. His research group study the possibility of producing these material from the sugar stream, hemicellulose and cellulose components, obtained by the pretreatment of woody biomass. Studies on the separation and use of high value extractives from the bark is also being assessed. The utilization of the crude glycerol, a byproduct of the biodiesel industry, form the production of bioplastics have yielded some interesting results. The design of such processes which can be integrated into existing plants are assessed for the economics and environmental impacts as they are considered important for economic feasibility.