Valorization of Biomass to Value-added Commodities: Current Trends, Challenges, and Future Prospects

Dr Michael Daramola is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is a chartered Chemical Engineer (C.Eng.) with Engineering Council of UK, a Registered Engineer with Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, and a C-rated researcher by the National Research Foundation (NRF) South Africa. He has more than 14 years of teaching and research experience in academia and research institutes nationally and internationally (e.g. in Nigeria, The Netherlands, France; Singapore, South Africa).  His research interest is within chemical and biochemical engineering, but with main activities in nanomaterials and bioresource engineering. He has authored/co-authored more than 90 scientific journal articles; produced 2 patents; authored/co-authored 46 referred conference proceedings, 10 book chapters, 2 edited books; and made more than 60 oral/poster presentations at national and international conferences as contributions to the above-mentioned research domain. He has trained more than 25 postgraduate students (PhD and MSc) and 5 postdoctoral fellows within the research area. He has served on the editorial board of International Journal of Oil, Gas & Coal Technology (IJOGCT) and Modern Research in Catalysis (MRC). Currently, he serves as an Associate Editor of the Chemical Engineering Communications (CEC) and an Associate Editorial Board Member of the Open Chemical Engineering Journal.

Dr. Augustine Omoniyi Ayeni graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile – Ife, Osun State, Nigeria with a Second Class Honours division in Chemical Engineering in 1997. He proceeded to the University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria where he obtained his MSc in Chemical Engineering in 2002. He obtained his PhD degree (Chemical Engineering) from Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria in 2013. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and the Acting Head, Department of Chemical Engineering, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria.
Among his academic achievements is the award of PhD research grant of Chief S.L. Edu memorial research grant 2008 sponsored by the Chevron Oil Nigeria in association with Nigerian Conservation Foundation, Lekki, Ajah, Lagos. He was also awarded an Advanced Research and Training fellowship 2009 by the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS). This gave him a research stay at the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Environmental Biotechnology Division, Nagpur, India from 2010 -2011. He is a Task Team member of the science plan (Sustainable Energy) of International Council for Scientific Union - Region of Africa (ICSU-ROA) based in Pretoria, South Africa. He is a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers as well as South African Institute of Chemical Engineers. He is a Registered Engineer (COREN: R.26927). He was awarded a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship tenable at the University of Witwatersrand, School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Johannesburg, South Africa (2015-2017). He is a frequent reviewer for many high-impact scientific journals. He has also reviewed for National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa.