Research Projects

Large amounts of lignocellulosic biomass are produced around the world from agriculture products every year and disposing of these wastes to the landfill becomes a great concern in developed as well as in developing countries. Global production of these agro-waste biomass was reported to be about 998 million tons with an increased rate of 5-10% per annum. In the food production and processing industry alone, considerable fraction of the food materials currently produced are being wasted as debris. For instance, the production of orange juice leaves about 50-60% of the fruit unused, which include peels, seeds, membranes and the residue left after juice extraction. Many of these wastes ended up in landfills which pollutes superficial and ground waters, and when amalgamated into the soil, it can invigorate the production and release of greenhouse gases such as NO and NO2 into the atmosphere. Though, large quantities of these biomass-waste generated are utilized for production of goods such as biogas, biochemicals, biofuels, biosorbent, animal feeds and biofertilizers, transformation of these residues to value-added products could greatly improve solid waste management as well as reducing their carbon footprints from the environment. In recent years, the used of bio-wastes as heterogeneous catalysts for different types of organic transformation has gained momentum due to their cost-free, eco-friendly and excellent catalytic activity. It was mainly employed for the production of biodiesel and their efficacy as catalysts in Henry reaction, Sonogashira reaction, Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction, Knoevenagel reaction, Dakin reaction, peptide bond formation and aza-Michael reaction were also explored. More recently, we have also investigated and reported for the first time the depolymerization of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste using orange peel ash (OPA) and bamboo leaf ash (BLA) as recyclable heterogeneous catalysts. So, in continuation to our recent interest on recycling and reprocessing of waste materials, this research project was proposed and submitted with the hope of finding greener methodologies for different type of organic transformations. In this project, a number of heterogeneous catalysts will be prepared from different bio-wastes and their catalytic activities on depolymerization and then repolymerization of plastics wastes, biodiesel production and carbon-carbon bond formation will be studied.