(7gl) Transitional Solutions Towards Decarbonized Economy

Record-breaking rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and consequent climate change in recent decades have induced public and private sectors to implement targets for reducing GHG emissions by moving towards sustainable technologies. Conventional energy industries (e.g. oil & gas and coal) are well established, characteristically conservative, and have inertia against intense changes mandated by environmental regulations. Alternative energies on the other hand are gradually rolling but have shown their technological and economic feasibility limitations. Wise integration of renewables with fossil fuel energy systems not only can play a systematic transformative role in transition towards low-carbon economy, but also would provide process-level synergistic enhancements. I like to utilize my research background - both in renewable process engineering and system-level life cycle analysis – and participate in this social and technological transition.

Successful Research Proposals:

• NSERC PDF, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, 90,000$, 2016-2018.
• Vanier Canada, NSERC, 150,000$, 2010-2013.
• 4YF, University of British Columbia (UBC), 100,000$, 2009-2013.

Postdoctoral Projects:

• “Life cycle environmental and energetic productivity assessment of fossil fuel energy systems for quantitative policy & decision making”
• “Can CO₂ enhanced oil recovery catalyze gigatonne carbon capture and storage deployment?”

Advisor: Prof. Adam R. Brandt, Energy Resources Engineering Department, Stanford University, CA.

• “Biorefinery in western North America: Technology maturation platform to enable commercial scale production of biojet and renewable diesel fuels”

Advisor: Prof. Tony X. Bi, Boeing-UBC joint project.

PhD Dissertation:

• “Biomass/Fossil fuel co-thermochemical conversion with & without integrated CO₂ capture”

Advisor: Profs. John R. Grace, Chemical & Biological Engineering Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Research Experience:

My research has been a composite of many fields in Energy and Environment for the last ten years, and this has granted me potent interdisciplinary insight. I always believed that experimentation and theoretical models are two necessary wings for a mature research and I consistently followed this path. I have worked and published in different experimental scales:

"fluidization and multi-phase gas-solid systems, solid-state reaction kinetics, thermogravimetric analysis, carbon (in biomass/biosolids & wastes/coal) thermochemical conversion (pyrolysis and gasification) in lab and pilot scales, catalytic renewable processes, and carbon capture via solid sorbents"

by using various techniques:

"micro/meso/macro surface area measurement via N₂ and CO₂ adsorption, SEM/EDX, XRD, TPR, TPO, TPD, GC, Fuel characterization (ultimate, proximate, and ash analysis), European standard tar sampling, laser particle size analysis, and hydrodynamics cold model study."

On the modeling side, I have experience in: "system-level environmental-economic policy assessment, life cycle assessment, energetic productivity analysis, quantitative policy & decision making, instability analysis and perturbation methods, and multiphase flows computational fluid mechanics."

Throughout my past experience in industrial sponsored and collaborative projects, I have demonstrated my capability and effectiveness in tactfully reaching the objectives of the projects within the given timeline. I have also attempted to improve my leadership skills by entering to UBC management sub-specialization program and taking some business courses like “business decision for technology ventures” and “management fundamentals for engineering enterprises”.

Teaching Interests:

1. Philosophy: Education transforms one’s viewpoints, horizons, and habits of mind. I have a strong desire to be contributory in that transformation. My principle teaching philosophy is to provide an atmosphere of caring and respect in order to encourage self-governing learning, to be honest about potential confusions, and unambiguous in my explanations. I de-emphasize memory work, and stress the importance of integration of knowledge by turning the classes into model of opportunity for inquiry-based learning. My goal is to present topics by drawing on both work and research experiences to make material relevant. Once students realize the value of their marketable skills and knowledge, it rises their desire to master those skills and concepts.
2. Experience: I recently participated in an advanced training and received a certificate of Stanford postdoctoral scholars teaching workshop. I acted as the teaching assistant of the following courses at UBC: Unit operation I (undergrad), Chemical engineering laboratory (undergrad), Elements of physics (undergrad), Environmental engineering laboratory (undergrad), Kinetics and reactor design (undergrad), Engineering management (grad), Business decision for technology venture (grad). I also served as guest lecturer at UBC: Kinetics and reactor design (undergrad), Advanced reactor design (grad), Business decision for technology venture (grad), Green engineering principles and industrial applications (grad). Since summer 2016, I have been mentoring two PhD and Masters students from Imperial College and Stanford on their thesis research. I also performed research mentorship of six visiting graduate/undergraduate students from Stanford, UCSB, Morehouse College, UBC, University of Lyon, Technical University of Munich and University of Nottingham.
3. Interests: The world is not on course for a sustainable future and we need global citizens with the creativity to solve complex multidisciplinary challenges. Thus, regardless of the course I am assigned to teach, I try to embed “environmental” and “sustainability” orientations in my lectures. I am in particular interested to offer the following courses:

• Optimization of Energy Systems: an introductory course in mathematical programming and optimization, with examples and problems drawn from the energy industries.
• an interdisciplinary graduate course in Energy, Environment and Sustainability by including global exergy resources, thermodynamics for renewables, solar thermal, biomass energy systems, and geothermal systems.
• Engineering Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Systems: covers methods of full-fuel-cycle LCA, including mass and energy balances in complex systems analysis, systems boundary considerations, co-product allocation methods, and embodied energy calculations for capital investment and infrastructure. It will also cover secondarily the complexities associated with broad-scale engineering analysis, including economic factors (so called “consequential” LCA).

Future Direction:

My research record shows my broad range of experience and interest in sustainable energy, from analytical and numerical multi-phase studies, to fundamental and large scale experimental approaches, and ultimately towards big-picture system-level environmental assessment analyses. This could not have been grown without collaboration, knowledge transfer and team working via effective communications and partnership with others.

My main research objective as faculty is to work on transitional solutions towards low-fossil-fuel economy by founding a Laboratory of Energy and Environment. Research in this lab is aimed to apply a fundamental understanding gained from lab scale experiments, together with appropriate mathematical modelling, to the industrial challenges of having more sustainable energy systems. The system-level life cycle studies would be our compass to strategies the lab’s future research directions. The main themes of the lab though not limited to are:

• Conversion: to enhance multi-phase conversion processes, e.g. biomass/waste pyrolysis and gasification to produce bio oil and syngas;
• Upgrading: to investigate different pathways towards liquid fuel (e.g. jetfuel) production from bio-syngas and bio oil upgrading;
• Synthesis: to develop cost-effective materials and techniques for CO₂ capture and storage;
• Design: to introduce novel reactor designs according to new process specifications and criteria, e.g. auto-thermal multiple bed reactor systems for simultaneous multiple conversion processes (e.g. combustion and thermochemical conversion);
• Macro-Analysis: to embrace system-level sustainability studies for quantitative decision and policy making by incorporating environmental assessment and optimization methodologies to evaluate our understanding of the environmental impacts of fossil-fuel-based energy systems and to determine how these impacts can be reduced.

Selected Publications:

1. Masnadi MS, Brandt AR, Climate impacts of oil extraction increase significantly with oilfield age, Nature Climate Change, 2017 (in press).
2. Masnadi MS, Brandt AR, Energetic productivity dynamics of global super-giant oilfields, Energy & Environmental Science, 10, 1493-1504, 2017.
3. Yu MM, MasnadiMS, et al., Co-gasification of biosolids with biomass: thermogravimetric analysis and a pilot scale study in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor, Bioresource Technology, 175, 51-58, 2015.
4. Masnadi MS, Grace JR, et al., Single-Fuel steam gasification of switchgrass and coal in a pilot-scale bubbling fluidized bed: A comprehensive parametric reference for co-gasification study, Energy, 80, 133-147, 2015.
5. Masnadi MS, Grace JR, et al., From fossil fuels towards renewable: inhibitory and catalytic effects of carbon thermochemical conversion during co-gasification of biomass and fossil fuels, Applied Energy, 140, 196-209, 2015.
6. Masnadi MS, Grace JR, et al., From coal towards renewables: Catalytic/Synergistic effects during steam co-gasification of switchgrass and coal in a pilot-scale bubbling fluidized bed reactor, Renewable Energy, 83, 918-930, 2015.
7. Masnadi MS, Grace JR, et al., Biomass/coal steam co-gasification integrated with in-situ CO₂ capture, Energy, 83, 326-336, 2015.
8. Ellis N, Masnadi MS, et al., Mineral matter interactions during co-pyrolysis of coal and biomass and their impact on intrinsic char co-gasification reactivity, Chemical Engineering Journal, 279, 402-408, 2015.
9. Masnadi MS, Habibi R, et al., Fuel characterization and co-pyrolysis kinetics of biomass and fossil fuels, Fuel, iSGA-3 Special Issue, 117, 1204-1214, 2014.
10. James AK, Helle SS, Thring RW, Rutherford MP, and Masnadi MS, Investigation of air and air-steam gasification of high carbon wood ash in a fluidized bed reactor, Energy and Environment Research, 4(1), 15-24, 2014.
11. Habibi R, Kopyscinski J, Masnadi MS, et al., Co-gasification of biomass and non-biomass feedstocks: synergistic and inhibition effects of switchgrass mixed with sub-bituminous coal and fluid coke during CO₂ gasification, Energy & Fuels, 27(1), 494–500, 2013.
12. Masnadi MS, Elyasi S, et al., Gas-Solid flow distribution through identical vertical passages: modeling and stability analysis, AIChE, 56(8), 2039-2051, 2010.
13. Masnadi MS, Grace JR, et al., Distribution of multi-phase gas-solid flow across identical parallel cyclones, Separation & Purification Technology, 72(1), 48-55, 2010.
14. Bi XT, Masnadi MS, Chapter 11: Multiphase reactors for biomass processing and thermochemical conversions, In: Cheng Y, Wei F, Jin Y, editors, Multiphase reactor engineering for clean and low-carbon energy applications, John Wiley and Sons, 331-376, 2017.