Dr. Bin Yang from Washington State University Revisited Biofuels Institute at Jiangsu University

Dr. Bin Yang, assistant professor from Washington State University revisited biofuels institute at Jiangsu University and delivered a presentation titled as "Scaling-Up Biorefinery with Synergies in Co-products" on November 11, 2013. More than 30 faculties, graduate students participated in his seminar. Dr. Yang’s visit was invited by Dr. Jianzhong Sun, director of Biofuels Institute, Jiangsu University.

In Dr. Bin Yang’s seminar, he systematically analyzed co-product approaches for large-scale production of biofuels derived from lignocellulose and discussed techno-economic issues relevant to the scale of bioethanol industry; Dr. Yang also demonstrated the research progresses in his team in the field of biomass refining, particularly in lignin catalytic degradation with microbial decomposers for various hydrocarbon productions. In addition, the academic cooperation and post-graduate exchanging between WSU and JU were also discussed; and finally, some exciting start-up collaborative projects were further reached by both sides.

After his presentation, accompanied by Prof. Sun, Dr. Yang also toured the laboratory and the relevant facilities at Biofuels Institute. Dr. Yang was really impressed with the high quality of the lab equipment, relevant supporting facility, and the research projects currently conducted at Biofuels Institute.

Dr. Bin Yang, is an active and frontier scientist in biofuels area. He has ever worked at a couple of professional institutes in the United States, such as University of California at Riverside and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. His research interests were mainly focused on cellulosic biomass conversion and the relevant novel pretreatment technologies. Over the past decade, he has made many unique and impressive contributions to the cellulosic biofuels, particularly in biomass pretreatment and the potentials of lignin utilizations. Dr. Yang has served as a referee for many top journals in the world, such as Biofuels Bioproducts & Biorefinery, Recent Patents on Food and Nutrition & Agriculture and Biofuels, etc. In addition, he also serves as a member on the advisory board for USA-NSF. Dr. Yang has authored or co-authored for more than 50 peer-reviewed journal papers, as well as 3 professional book chapters. Dr. Yang currently serves as a PI or leading scientist for more than 10 important projects/grants from DOE or other sponsors in USA.