Biomass Group, Nanjing Agricultural University, PO Box 68, 40 Dianjiangtai Road, Nanjing 210031

Miss Siew-Xian CHIN, a visitng PhD student from National University of Malaysia, supervised by Assoc. Prof. Dr Chin-Hua CHIA and Prof. Zhen FANG has succesfully passed her defence of dissertation on 27^th Jan 2015.

She has successfully defended her thesis entitled “Acid Hydrolysis of Pretreated Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Fibre to Produce Fine Chemicals” while the committee suggested that National University of Malaysia to award her a doctorate degree in Materials Science, according to relevant authorities and subjected to regulations.

During her PhD studies, she underwent 6 months (2013-2014) of training and carried out her research project as a visiting doctoral student in our biomass lab. She managed to complete four research papers and one proceeding in international journals and presented her research findings at international conferences.

Once again, Congratulations to Miss Chin.

5月23日，由云南大学、昆明理工大学和中国科学院昆明植物研究所专家组成的答辩委员会听取了由生物能源研究组2014年博士毕业生蒋丽群的论文报告和答辩。经答辩委员会讨论和无记名投票表决，一致同意蒋丽群同学通过学位论文答辩，建议按有关规定授予理学博士学位。在此毕业之际，向蒋丽群同学表示祝贺。

Doctoral student of biomass group passed her defense of degree dissertation in 2014

In May 23rd, five experts from Yunnan University, Kunming University of Science and Technology, and Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences) heard the report and defense of Liqun Jiang, a doctoral student of biomass group that was expected to be graduated in 2014. After discussion and secret ballot, five dissertation committee members all agreed the thesis and defense of Liqun Jiang, and suggested the academic degree evaluation committee of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS award to Jiang the doctorate in science, according to relevant regulations. Congratulation to Jiang!

随着气候变化和石油价格的不断上涨，人们日益认识到寻求能源替代品的迫切性，所以国内外研究者纷纷开展农业废弃物转化成高附加值产品的深入研究。在所有可替代资源当中，木质纤维素原料可作为较为理想的碳源。 （更多…）

Climate change and rising oil prices have urged the needs for researching alternative energy. Among possible alternative resources, lignocellulosic biomass is one of the promising raw materials, which has been intensively studied recently. （更多…）

Biodiesel is an environment-friendly renewable energy. The critical issues on biodiesel studies are the development of recyclable and reusable solid catalyst and the use of non-edible oil such as Jatropha oil as feedstock. Fang’s team from XTBG uses coprecipitation-calcination-reduction method to prepare solid CaFe₂O₄-Ca₂Fe₂O₅-Fe₃O₄-Fe catalyst with certain magnetism. This catalyst maintains a relative high activity on catalytic transesterification, and concurrently solves the separation of solid catalyst from products, as well as the disposal of waste acidic liquid and unwanted emulsification in homogeneous catalysis. The conversion of soybean and Jatropha oils to biodiesel over this catalyst reach 83.5% and 78.2%, respectively. The main active components of catalyst are calcium ferrites on the catalyst surface. The magnetic catalyst could be recycled and reused for three times, which shows a potential application for the green production of biodiesel.

Related paper titled “Biodiesel Production from Soybean and Jatropha Oils by Magnetic CaFe₂O₄-Ca₂Fe₂O₅-Based Catalyst” was published on the journal “Energy” (Energy, 2014, 68: 584-591, IF =3.65).