Effective and economical biomass utilization is one of the key challenges for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of fuels and chemicals. The recent food crisis further underscores the importance of developing novel conversion routes for lignocellulosic biomass. Supercritical fluids and gas-expanded liquids have the potential to improve reaction kinetics and heat transfer, enhance mass transfer in multiphase systems, and reduce coking in heterogeneously catalyzed reactions involving biomass substrates. In addition, the tunability of these solvents with pressure can facilitate less energy intensive separations such as precipitation and decantation to recover products and catalysts.

During my doctoral research at the Georgia Institute of Technology with Prof. Charles Eckert and Prof. Charles Liotta, I used kinetic and spectroscopic techniques to examine solvent property changes in gas-expanded liquids. My postdoctoral work at the University of Kansas with Prof. Bala Subramaniam and Prof. R.V. Chaudhari has focused on catalytic hydrogenations of biomass substrates in supercritical media. My future research will examine the use of supercritical and expanded solvents for both raw biomass processing to usable feedstocks and the production of fuels, fine chemicals, and intermediates from biomass-derived compounds.