Dr. Mante is currently a Research Chemical Engineer at RTI International’s Energy Technologies Division. He has over 10 years of experience in thermochemical conversion of biomass. His research efforts are geared towards addressing technical barriers and challenges related to thermochemical processing and conversion of biomass. His focus is on using thermal, chemical, and innovative catalytic processes based on a biorefinery concept but analogous to the existing petroleum refinery to produce a wide variety of biomass derived intermediates that can be used in today’s processing infrastructures for liquid fuels, chemicals, pharmaceutical products, plastics and other essentials of modern life. Prior to joining RTI, He was a tenure track Assistant Research Engineer in the Sustainable Energy Technologies Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) where he was responsible for the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program for biomass thermochemical conversion. He is skilled at benchtop, laboratory, and pilot plant thermochemical conversion system operations. His current research focus is on the conversion of biomass into biofuels and biochemicals via catalytic pyrolysis and hydrotreating. Broadly, his interest include the following:

• Thermochemical Biomass Conversion.
• Optimization of petroleum refining technologies for the production of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel from biomass intermediates.
• Heterogeneous catalysis in biofuel production
• Lignin Conversion and Utilization
• Biomass Pretreatment (Hot water extraction, Electron beam irradiation, and steam explosion)