Rate My Professor R. Ravikumar

Professor R. Ravikumar serves as Professor (Research) in the Department of Biotechnology at Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology. He is the Head of the Centre for Bioenergy and Bioproduct Research, focusing on bioenergy and bioproducts, algal technology, and environmental biotechnology. Additionally, he holds the position of Associate Dean for Research and Development. With a Ph.D. from Anna University, Chennai, his expertise lies in bioenergy and environmental biotechnology. He maintains active collaborations with institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad, Anna University Chennai, NIT Calicut, SCCL Coal Mines, and Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. His research facilities include an industrial pilot plant for bioenergy and bioproduct development, an algal culture collection center, and anaerobic bacterial culture setups.

R. Ravikumar has secured multiple funded projects, including the DST-CERI project "Microbial Recovery of Biogenic Methane from Coal Washery Rejects with CO2 Sequestration using Novel Hybrid Geo CCORD Photobioreactor and Reclamation of the Site" (₹1,02,03,600, 2019-2023, with SCCL Coal Mines and NIT Calicut), DST-SERB "Development of Novel and Intensified Metabolic Biorefinery Technology for Sustainable Ethanol Production" (₹41,82,200, 2014, completed), and DST-FYSS "High-value Coproduct Strategy for Biomethane and Value Added Bioproducts for Domestic Application" (₹15,50,000, 2016-2019, completed). His publication portfolio features 20 SCI-indexed papers, 23 Scopus-indexed papers, and 2 book chapters, with 326 Google Scholar citations, h-index of 12, and i10-index of 10. Notable publications include "Investigation on future perspectives of ex-situ biogenic methane generation from solid waste coal and coal washery reject" (Fuel, 2022), "Investigation on the utilization of coal washery rejects by different microbial source isolated from coal site" (Chemosphere, 2021), "Highly crystalline cotton spinning wastes utilization: Pretreatment optimized hydrolysis and fermentation using Pleurotus florida for bioethanol production" (Fuel, 2021), and "Co-immobilized tri-enzyme biocatalyst system for one pot pretreatment of four different perennial lignocellulosic biomass and evaluation of their bioethanol production potential" (Bioresource Technology, 2018). He holds a patent titled "Nanoparticle impregnated photo bioreactor for better light scattering to improve light distribution for growth of microalgae" (201941032648). Awards received include the Young Scientist award from DST and the APP innovative researcher award from the Association of Pharmacy. R. Ravikumar has guided four Ph.D. scholars to completion on topics such as bioethanol production, lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment, microalgal lipid production, and cyanobacterial optimization, contributing significantly to advancements in sustainable bioenergy technologies.