This workshop on high-pressure processes is scheduled for May 13-14, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco. The workshop will center on several important areas of energy conversion at elevated pressures: 1) bio-renewable processing: gasification, biodiesel, and lignocellulose and 2) process intensification for lower energy and/or feedstock usage. Approximately 10 speakers will be invited to share their latest research and provide their insight regarding developing trends and potentially fruitful research directions. In terms of the broader impacts, students at various levels of education (from undergraduate to graduate to postdoctoral) will be aided by this proposed workshop. This will help educate and motivate the next generation of researchers and educators. Students from underrepresented groups will be encouraged to attend. At the conclusion, the PI will write a detailed report about the various presentations and panel discussions for limited distribution and for public distribution on his website. The presentations and the panel discussions will yield a section on the major challenges in energy within the high-pressure community. The report will provide valuable information and insights that could help guide future grand challenges and research directions.
Overall, this is a timely forum on the application of high pressure processes to important sustainability issues. In addition, the participants will provide insight into new research directions, and they will describe potential applications along with milestones for their realization. The results will be disseminated through a detailed report, which will be posted on the PI?s website.
This workshop wished to address the key issues and disseminate the latest in cutting edge research involving energy-related research at elevated (or supercritical) pressures. The workshop centered on several key areas of Energy at Elevated Pressures: 1) Bio-renewable Processing: Gasification, Biodiesel, Ligno-cellulose, etc.; 2) Process Intensification for Lower Energy and/or Feedstock Usage. A major workshop was organized bringing several dozen researchers from the US and abroad for presenations both oral and poster on the leading energy-related research of at high pressures. The Objectives of the Workshop were to: Bring together some of the leading researchers in energy at elevated pressures Involve graduate students (the future leading researchers) Share information and ideas Obtain a scope of the current state of research Six plenary spearkers were invited and presented in addition to fifteen other speakers. 22 people (mostly graduate students) gave posters at a poster session. The revolving audience was over 100 people at any given time among the oral and poster sessions. Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers had the opportunity to see and meet some of the leading PIs and leaned new ideas and techniques that they may be able to employ in their own current research and their research projects in their future vocations. The abstracts of oral and poster presentations and a conference proceeding paper for oral presentations were included in the Proceedings of the International Society of Supercritical Fluids 2012 (ISSF2012).
