Biography

Volkan Degirmenci is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Warwick whose work is focused on sustainable production of high-volume chemicals from renewables. Over the past 10 years, he researched on the transformation of plant biomass into platform chemicals for establishing the safe, sustainable, and circular chemical industry of the future. He developed novel catalytic systems to achieve the selective conversion of biomass to biochemicals and biofuels which form the basis for a biorefinery. Volkan is passionate about embedding sustainability in teaching. He’s the co-director of the innovative interdisciplinary MSc Humanitarian Engineering at Warwick. He's been actively collaborating with multiple international institutions particularly in South East Asia and Asia and he's been the Director of International Collaborations of School of Engineering.

Research Interests

• Design of new catalysts for efficient conversion of biomass derivatives.
• Green processes and mechanisms of platform chemicals, e.g. HMF, FDCA from biomass.
• Development of functional porous materials, e.g. MOFs, Hierarchical Zeolites.
• Energy-efficient non-traditional chemical reactors for bio- or photocatalysis.
• In-situ characterization of supported transition metal complexes by spectroscopy, e.g. Operando XAFS, FT-IR, Raman, NMR.

Teaching

I have been teaching Bioenergy & Biotechnology (ES97B) and Renewable Energy (IL914).

In addition, during my career I taught the following modules: Advanced Chemical Reaction Engineering, Chemical Engineering Design with ASPEN, Simulation of Chemical Processes (COMSOL & MATLAB), Transport Phenomena and Fluid Dynamics.

Publications

• Systematic modification of UiO‐66 metal‐organic frameworks for glucose conversion into 5‐hydroxymethyl furfural in water, ChemCatChem 13 (10), 2517-2529, 2021. full text

• Exceptionally Efficient and Recyclable Heterogeneous Metal–Organic Framework Catalyst for Glucose Isomerization in Water, ChemCatChem 10 (4), 651-651, 2018. full text

• Membranes for all vanadium redox flow batteries, Journal of Energy Storage 32, 101754. full text

• Gallium and tin exchanged Y zeolites for glucose isomerisation and 5-hydroxymethyl furfural production, Applied Catalysis A: General 605, 117798. full text

 Full list of publications can be reached here.

Projects and Grants