Sankar Bhattacharya Editor

Professor Shusheng Pang received his PhD from Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Canterbury in 1994. Then he worked at NZ Forest Research Institute for 8 years on wood drying and processing of wood products. He was appointed Associate Professor at Canterbury University in 2002 and full professor in 2009. Professor Pang is also the Director of Canterbury University’s Wood Technology Research Centre. He is a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand a Fellow of International Academy of Wood Science (IAWS). In addition, he serves as the editorial board member for ‘Energies’, ‘Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery’ and ‘Maderas. Ciencia y Tecnología’.

Professor Pang’s Research interests and expertise include:

• Drying of wood and woody biomass;
• Biomass energy, biofuels and chemicals;
• Bio-composites and renewable chemicals/polymers from woody biomass.

In last 20 years, Professor Pang, with his team, has developed a number of advanced technologies in the above fields and published over 150 papers in international leading journals in the above fields. He was also invited to give keynotes at international conferences. Recently Professor Pang organised and co-chaired the 6th International Conference on Bio-refinery in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Professor Sankar Bhattacharya has over twenty-eight years engineering and research experience in coal-fired power generation. He currently leads a group of eighteen researchers on coal and biomass based and industry-funded drying, gasification, oxy-fuel and circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustion and liquid fuels research projects at Monash University. Prior to his return to Australia in 2009, he was with the International Energy Agency leading their Cleaner Fossil Fuels program where he was responsible for IEA’s work on coal-fired power stations and co-authored several publications including their flagship publications - World Energy Outlook, Energy Technology Perspectives, CO2 Capture and Storage, and several country reviews. He previously worked in India on design and commissioning services of coal-fired power stations, in Thailand on biomass carbonization, and in Australia with the Lignite CRC as a Principal Research Engineer and with Anglo Coal as Principal Process Engineer. He led the first pilot plant trials in Australia on CFB combustion, and pressurized oxygen-blown gasification using Australian and North American lignites at facilities in Australia and the USA.

Dr Bhattacharya is the co-author of one patent, six book chapters, over ten research reports, and over one hundred journal publications. He has also presented widely in these areas in Brazil, China, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, Russia, Thailand, and the USA. These included presentation as panel speaker at Powergen Europe, METI(Japan), and keynote speeches at the International Coal Science and Technology conference, Chemical Society of Japan, Novel Carbon Resources Symposium in Japan, and the CHEMECA.

Prof. Junjie Yan is currently the Dean for the School of Energy and Power Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. He received his Ph.D. degree in Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 1994. He was a senior visiting scholar in the department of mechanical engineering at Yokohama National University from Sep. 2001 to Mar. 2002.

Prof. Yan is a well-known researcher in the areas of thermal system energy saving, multiphase flow and heat transfer. He authors or co-authors of 4 books and more than 300 peer-reviewed journal papers, about half of which are in international journals. He holds more than 30 patents. Prof. Junjie Yan is the Yangtze River Scholar Professor, the winner of China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists by NSF of China, the expert enjoying the special allowance of the State Council, the New Century Excellent Talent in University of China. He is a member of Multiphase Flow Special Committee for Chinese Society of Engineering Thermophysics, a member of Standardization Technology Committee of Power Plant Steam Turbine of China, a member of Technical Committee of Technology Research Center of Chinese Thermal Power Generation, a member of Thermal Power Generation Special Committee of Chinese Society of Electrical Engineering, a Member of Automatic and Informatization Special Committee of Chinese Society of Electrical Engineering.