Sriraam Ramanathan Chandrasekaran

Lead Research Engineer

One East Hazelwood Drive
Champaign, Illinois 61820
phone: 217-300-1477
fax: 217-333-8944
schandr@illinois.edu

Sriraam Chandrasekaran

Dr. Sriraam Chandrasekaran is a Lead Research Engineer at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) and has been with ISTC since in May 2013.

Education

  • Bachelors of Technology in Chemical Engineering from Anna University (India)
  • Master’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Clarkson University (Potsdam, NY)
  • Ph.D in Environmental Science and Engineering at Clarkson University (Potsdam, NY)

Research Interests

  • Alternative energy
  • Reduction of wastes and air emissions
  • State of art pyrolysis, combustion, gasification, hydrothermal liquefaction and carbonization, and anaerobic digestion process for plastics, biomass, algae, municipal sewage wastes, and electronic wastes

Current Projects

  • “Distributed production of ready to use gasoline from low value waste products” funded by EREF
  • Efficiency and emissions testing on residential scale furnaces burning grasses funded by IDOT
  • Chemical characterizations, hydrothermal liquefaction, pyrolysis and modeling of IPBC-CABER
  • Developing proof of concept for:
    • Adaptive Arc - Organic metal contaminant removal
    • Paradigm Bio Aviation - Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) stream characterization for combustion and gasification process

Analytical Skills

  • Analytical Instruments: Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), XRF, Py-GCMS, GC-MS, GC-FID, UV Spectrometer, SEM, Bomb calorimeter, Total Organic Carbon analyzer (TOC), and extraction processes for organics, inorganics and ions
  • Stack Sampling: Dilution sampling system EPA Conditional Test Methods (CTM-039), EPA-Method 5 and OTM-28
  • Field Instruments (for Air Quality Measurements): Ambient gas monitors (CO, NOx, SO2), FMPS, FDMS, TEOM, High Volume samplers, MOUDI and nano MOUDI

Professional Affiliations

  • Reviewer of Journals - Biomass and Bioenergy, Energy and Fuels Member of AIChE, AEESP, AWMA and AAAR

Funded Grants

  • Assisted writing NYSERDA grant proposal on Energy Efficiency Retrofit of Existing High-Efficiency Wood Heating System at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake: Response to NYSERDA PON 2652. ( $130,000)
  • Assisted writing Center for Advanced Bioenergy Research (CABER/ IPBC), Seed Grant funding ($25,000)

Awards and Highlights

  • Recipient of Student Assistantship for American Association of Aerosol Research2010
  • Recipient of Student Assistantship for workshop on cookstoves testing at EPA facilities, NC
  • Awarded “VICAL AWARD” by Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE) for a research paper published in National Conference S-Chemcon 2008
  • The Final year project during Bachelors titled “The Interplay between the Feedstock Quality and the Esterification Technology on Biodiesel production” was awarded the BEST PROJECT of the year 2009 by the Department of Chemical Engineering, Sri Venkateswara college of Engineering

Recent Publications

  • Chandrasekaran, S.R., Hopke, P.K, Newtown, M, Hurlburt, A, Characterization of Emissions from Grass Pellet Combustion. Energy and Fuels (Just Accepted) dx.doi.org/10.1021/ef4010169.
  • Chandrasekaran, S.R., Hopke, P.K, Newtown, M, Hurlburt, A, Residential Scale Biomass Boiler Emissions and Efficiency Characterization for several fuels. Energy and Fuels (2013), 27, 4840-4849.
  • Chandrasekaran, S.R., Hopke, P.K, Kinetics of Switch Grass Pellet Thermal Decomposition under Inert and Oxidizing Atmosphere. Bioresource Technology(2012), 125, 52-58.
  • Chandrasekaran, S.R., Hopke, P.K., Rector, L., Allen. G., Lin. L., Chemical composition of wood pellets and wood chips. Energy and Fuels (2012), 26, 4932-4937.
  • Chandrasekaran, S.R., Laing, J.R., Holsen, T.M., Raja, S., , Hopke, P.K. Emission Characterization and Efficiency Measurements of 2 High-Efficiency Wood Boilers, Energy and Fuels  (2011), 25, 5015-5021.
  • Jiaoyan Huang, Philip K. Hopke, Hyun-Deok Choi, James R. Laing, Huailue Cui, Tiffany J. Zananski, Sriraam Ramanathan Chandrasekaran, Oliver V. Rattigan, and Thomas M. Holsen. Mercury (Hg) emissions from domestic biomass combustion for space heating. Chemosphere (2011)1694-1699.