Fall 2018 - Group outing at Elkmont Exchange. May graduation ceremony - Femi O. becomes the first Ph.D. graduate of our group. Dr. Oyedeji is now working at Oak Ridge National Lab. Fall 2018 - Group outing at Elkmont Exchange. Spring 2018 - Group outing at Babalu in Downtown Knowxville. A snapshot of our lab members including all graduate and undergraduate advisees and co-advisees and Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering (MABE) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) collaborators. A snapshot of our lab members including all graduate and undergraduate advisees and co-advisees and Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering (MABE) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) collaborators. Drs. Abdoulmoumine and Tyner mentored a senior design team that placed first at the ASABE 2017 G.B. Gunlogson Student Environmental Design Competition. Their project was titled 'Design of a Mobile Biochar Unit for On-Site Conversion of Waste Wood'. Ross Houston (M.S. graduate student) explaining the inner working of the bench-scale bubbling fluidized bed dual pyrolysis and gasification system to a group CHEM undergraduates. Oluwafemi (Femi) Oyedeji (Ph.D. graduate student) charging the hopper of the bench-scale bubbling fluidized bed dual pyrolysis and gasification system. We are developing coupled computational fluid dynamic and discrete element models for biomass thermochemical conversion processes. Here, we are simulating switchgrass gasification in our bench-scale reactor. Qiaoming Liu (M.S. graduate student) preparing to drain the liquid product condensers on the bench-scale bubbling fluidized bed dual pyrolysis and gasification system. Ross Houston (left, M.S. graduate student) and Oluwafemi Oyedeji (right, Ph.D. graduate student) attended the 2017 Workshop on Multiphase Flow Science in Morgantown, WV from August 8th to 10th. The workshop is organized by NETL. Qiaoming (right, M.S. graduate student) and Miles (left, Undergraduate Research Aide) recognized as 'Graduate Student with Most Professional Promise in Biosystems Engineering' and 'Top Upperclass Scholar in Biosystems Engineering' at the 2017 BESS banquet.

Group headlines

  • Team members graduate

    May 18th, 2019 -- Team member Femi successfully defended his dissertation. Congratulations, Femi!

  • Team members graduate

    December 18th, 2017 -- Team members Qiaoming and Preenaa successfully defended their theses and graduated. Congrats, Qiaoming and Preenaa. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

  • Team leader recipient of Gamma Sigma Delta Research Award of Merit

    November 10th, 2017 -- Dr. Abdoulmoumine was the recipient of the 2017 Gamma Sigma Delta Research Award of Merit. The award recognizes a faculty member of the Institute of Agriculture who has made an outstanding contribution to research, either directly or indirectly related to agriculture and related disciplines.

  • Student team wins Environmental Design at ASABE 2017 IM

    July 19th, 2017 -- The senior design team mentored by Drs. Abdoulmoumine and Tyner won first place for the Gunlogson Environmental Design Student competition at the ASABE International Annual meeting (IM).

  • Undergraduate research aide joins research team

    June 4th, 2017 -- Luke Martin joins the research team as the newest undergraduate research aide. Luke will be working with graduate students as well as Dr. Abdoulmoumine on on-going catalytic studies.

  • Team member gets summer internship in food company

    May 12th, 2017 -- Undergraduate research aide, Miles received a summer internship at Schwan Company in Houston, TX. Miles will be a maintenance and reliability engineering intern.

  • Graduate student receives award at department Award Banquet

    April 26th, 2017 -- Qiaoming Liu was the recipient of the "Graduate Student with Most Professional Promise in Biosystems Engineering" at 2017 departmental awards banquet. Congratulations Qiaoming!

  • URA receives award at department Award Banquet

    April 26th, 2017 -- Miles Ownby was the recipient of the "Top Upperclass Scholar in Biosystems Engineering" at 2017 departmental awards banquet. Congratulations Miles!

  • New additions to research team

    June 13th, 2016 -- Holly and Ross joined our research group as the newest M.S. students. Holly comes to us from Auburn University and Ross from the University of Alabama.

  • Graduate students receive travel grant awards

    May, 2016 -- Qiaoming and Femi were awarded a travel grant to attend the upcoming 2016 American Society of Biological and Agricultural Engineers meeting. Congratulations Femi and Qiaoming!

  • Graduate student joins research team

    January 15th, 2016 -- Preenaa joined our research group as the newest M.S. student. Preenaa comes to us from Penn State University.

  • Haslam Scholar joins research team

    September 15th, 2015 -- Miles Ownby joined our research group as Undergraduate Research Aide. Miles is a Haslam Scholar student in the Biosystems Engineering & Soil Science Department at UT.

  • Graduate student joins research team

    August 15th, 2015 -- Oluwafemi (Femi) joined our research group as the newest Ph.D. student. Femi comes to us from Auburn University and was the recipient of Institute of Agriculture's Chancellor Fellowship.

  • Graduate student joins research team

    August 15th, 2015 -- Qiaoming joined our research group as the newest M.S. student. Qiaoming comes to us from China Agricultural University in Beijing.

Research highlights

Excert of graphical abstract illustration of the intermediate temperature shift kinetics manuscript. October 25th, 2019 - How do you leverage gaseous byproducts of lignocellulosic biomass to produce hydrogen in situ for hydrodeoxygenation pyrolytic vapors? This is the central question behind Ph.D. graduate student Ross H's recently published paper in Reaction Chemistry and Engineering journal and titled "Intermediate temperature water-gas shift kinetics for hydrogen production". Ross experimentally determined the intermediate-temperature water gas shift kinetics over a commercial Cu-based catalyst and simulated the experimental results with both a mechanistic Langmuir-Hinshelwood model and a low order empirical power-law model. Please check out the full article at DOI: 10.1039/C9RE00121B for more information.