Research Interests

My research interests lie in the area of process systems engineering (PSE). I specifically work on optimization and control of various chemical/ biochemical processes, which involve waste to energy conversion. Currently, our lab is working on the following projects:

Optimization of hydrothermal pretreatment of lignocellulosic feedstocks for recovering maximum amount of monomeric sugars, which will be subsequently hydrolyzed using enzymes to produce glucose. The produced glucose will be the precursor for the bio-ethanol production via fermentation. Therefore, we are trying to develop a model-based optimization and control framework for the optimal production of bio-ethanol/ bio-butanol.

Bio-crude/ bio-oil is an alternative to the diesel fuel and hence, can mitigate the global warming. Bio-oil can be produced via hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge. Therefore, our attempts will be to model and formulate a dynamic optimization framework for the batch hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge for bio-crude production.

The produced bio-oil contains several hetero-atoms such as oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur which reduce the heating value of the bio-oil. Hence, these impurities should be removed from the bio-oil to enhance its calorific value and make it suitable as a transportation fuel. Therefore, we are studying various bio-oil upgrading methods such as hydrotreatment, hydrocracking, catalytic hydrodeoxygenation, and supercritical fluid to address this issue. Our final goal is to identify the best bio-oil upgrading method and subsequently develop a model-based optimization and control strategy for the purification of bio-oil.

My overall research interests can be summarized as follows:

Dynamic Optimization
Multi-objective Optimization
Stochastic Optimization
Batch-to-batch iterative learning control
Model based design of experiments
Machine learning methods

BITS Pilani

Research Interests

Research Interests

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