Sustainable Reaction Engineering Lab

The Sustainable Reaction Engineering Lab uses reaction kinetics, catalysis, and chemical reaction engineering to develop and understand new technologies for producing renewable fuels and chemicals.

Current work focuses on the conversion of wet biomass (e.g., micro algae, food waste) into a crude bio-oil and the subsequent catalytic upgrading of this biocrude into a mixture of hydrocarbons that could be converted to liquid fuels using conventional petroleum refining technology. We work with real biomass and also with simpler model compounds. The work includes both experimental and mathematical modeling components.

Current research focuses in the lab include:

• Renewable liquid fuels from biomass
• Hydrothermal catalysis
• Kinetics of complex reacting systems
• Chemicals from renewable resources
• Algae biofuel