Please join us for the weekly BAE seminar
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
1:10 2 pm, 2045 BAINER HALL
Topic: School to Fuel: Making the Transition from Academia to Biofuels
Presenter:
Dr. Joshua Rapport
Vice President of Research and Development, CleanWorld
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Abstract
High Rate anaerobic digester technologies were developed at UCD, researched in the lab, scaled up in the field at the campus waste water treatment plant, and patented before being licensed to CleanWorld. The company went on to design and engineer three commercial systems, the most recent located at the UCD landfill. This system will be the largest of its kind and it will be commissioned this week. As a graduate student, Josh Rapport worked on bench and pilot scale research on this very technology before being hired by CleanWorld to direct their research and development efforts. He has worked at CleanWorld as the VP of R&D for three years now, and will look back at how far he and the company have come and how he navigated the transition between the world of academic research and the world of industrial project development.
Bio
Joshua Rapport is the Vice President of Research and Development at CleanWorld. He is a leading engineer and researcher in the field of Anaerobic Digestion, Biofuels, and Bioprocessing. As Vice President of Research & Development at CleanWorld, Josh has directed the companys ambitious research and efforts, successfully demonstrating commercial viability of the companys High Solid Anaerobic Digestion (HSAD) technology. Josh has used his expertise to help integrate novel pre-processing, digestion, and gas conditioning and delivery systems, model and design key components, and to develop an efficient control and data monitoring system. His work has led directly to a reduction in cost of the technology while improving the robustness of the AD system, prompting speedier market adoption and improved performance of CleanWorlds Anaerobic Digestion technologies. Josh has also lead research and development efforts for CleanWorld Organics, a subsidiary of CleanWorld that has successfully developed and licensed groundbreaking new fertilizer and soil amendment products from digestate material. He is currently overseeing development of an automated commercial-scale Fertilizer Production System for processing digestate at volume.
Josh holds a Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from the University of California, Davis and a Master of Science in International Agricultural Development from University of California, Davis. He received a Bachelor in Biology from Stanford University.
Coffee and cookies will be served.