Roundtable: Novel Concepts in Biomass and Waste Stream Utilization

This roundtable is designed to address issues on biomass waste, biomass utilization without gasification and skid  mounted gasifier, reformer units for distributed power generation. The complicated technological and engineering challenges for the generation of energy through biomass will be examined closely by our distinguished presenter, Professor Johaness Schwank- the James and Judith Street Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Johannes Schwank, James and Judith Street Professor of Chemical Engineering, holds a Ph. D. degree in Physical Chemistry from Innsbruck University in Austria. In 1978, he came to the University of Michigan as a Fulbright-Hays scholar to conduct postdoctoral research in the area of catalysis with Professor Giuseppe Parravano. He joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1980 where he rose through the ranks and became Full Professor of Chemical Engineering in 1990. He served as Chairman of the Chemical Engineering Department from 1990 – 1995, and is currently a member of the College of Engineering Executive Committee at the University of Michigan.

He is the Director of the Transportation Energy Center. He is the author of more than 150 publications, and holds eight U.S. patents. His research group is working on a wide range of topics, including nanostructured materials for catalysis, energy storage, and gas sensing applications; synthetic fuels from coal and biomass; hydrogen production from gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel; solid oxide fuel cells; automotive emission control  catalysts; and novel catalyst synthesis and characterization methods.