Filed under: Group News, Students | Tags: defence, Graduate Studies, PhD student
Nduka successfully defended his thesis yesterday afternoon. Thank you to everyone involved. The examiners: Parisa Mehrkhodavandi (UBC), Bob Davis (MUN) and Peter Warburton (MUN). The chair: Shirley Solberg (MUN). The staff in the School of Graduate Studies and the members of the chemistry department who came out to offer support incl. current and past supervisory committee members, Louise Dawe and Chris Kozak.
Filed under: Group News, Science, Students | Tags: biorefinery, canada, chitosan, fishery, green chemistry, PhD student, renewable feedstock, waste
The first paper from Khaled’s PhD research has been accepted for publication by Green Chemistry.
It is called “Hydrolysis of Chitosan Into Levulinic Acid and 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural In Water Under Microwave Irradiation”
It describes our first efforts at converting biopolymers that can be obtained from fishery waste into potentially useful small molecules. This proof of concept will hopefully lead to these natural materials being used alongside agricultural and forestry wastes as the starting point for chemicals with a wide range of purposes including, fuels, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and plastics.
Some of the results were obtained in collaboration with Jessica Besaw (NSERC USRA 2010, Kerton group) who Khaled acted as mentor to. Congratulations Khaled and Jess!
Aminopolysaccharides (Chitin) are available in the shells of crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, shrimps). Khaled has shown that valuable 'Platform' chemicals can be made from them
Green Chem., DOI:10.1039/C2GC35048C
Green Chemistry @ MUN 