His research is focused on the fundamental understanding of lignocellulosic biomass reactivity (changes in biomass chemistry/structure and their effects on conversion process) for both biochemical and thermochemical conversion processes into biofuels.
Thermal pretreatment and its effect on fast pyrolysis. Thermal pretreatment of biomass such as torrefaction has a potential to be integrated with fast pyrolysis and gasification operation. His research is focused on the characterization of biomass chemistry/structure changes during thermal pretreatment and the evaluation of bio-oil quality when torrefied biomass is used.
Cellulose crystalline structure and its allomorphs. Fundamental understanding of cellulose crystalline structure is critical for many applications such as paper, textiles, chemicals, and bioenergy. Recently we have applied new technology (sum-frequency-generation vibration spectroscopy) together with x-ray diffraction and solid-state NMR to elucidate its structure. SFG spectroscopy can selectively detect cellulose crystalline structure without interference from hemicellulose and lignin.
Biomass post-treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. Inefficient enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass is largely due to the recalcitrant nature of lignocellulosic biomass. This study focuses on identifying the physico-chemical properties of biomass responsible for low conversion efficiency and developing post-treatment operations to overcome recalcitrant issues.
