SHARING THE LATEST SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES IN BIOMASS AND WASTE RECOVERY

The world's leading experts in biomass and waste recovery will be brought together at the 8th WasteEng conference from 31 May to 4 June in a virtual format, co-chaired by Canada (Professor Animesh Dutta of the University of Guelph) and in the presence of Mrs Kareen Rispal, French Ambassador to Canada.

Created in 2005 by Ange Nzihou, Professor at the RAPSODEE Centre UMR CNRS 5302 of IMT Mines Albi, the WasteEng conferences aim to provide the state of the art of the scientific and technological levers on which energy and environmental transitions will be based.

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THE WASTEENG CONFERENCE SERIES, A WORLDWIDE REFERENCE

Each edition of the event involves nearly 500 organisations worldwide (academic, governmental, industrial). It brings together prestigious partners including Princeton and Columbia Universities in the USA, the American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE) and the CNRS. Internationally renowned, WasteEng is one of the few conferences labelled by the European Commission as a European Union thematic conference, by the AIChE and by the ACS (American Chemical Society) for the organisation of joint events and the development of research roadmaps (white papers) in this field. The IMT Mines Albi organising committee for this series of conferences is made up of Elsa Weiss-Hortala, Javier Escudero and Ange Nzihou.

At the heart of sustainable development, the WasteEng conferences have been developed to advance the green economy, to make it more resource efficient, resilient to climate change and in sync with the natural environment. While focused on scientific and technological advances, the topics covered are very concrete, such as life cycle assessment and technologies/processes/practices that reduce GHG emissions.

"The results shared within the framework of WasteEng will contribute directly to achievement of the sustainable development objectives of many countries and provide an answer to the scarcity of natural resources. [...] In 20 years, waste has become a real resource, whereas previously its recovery was often limited to transforming and reusing materials" Ange Nzihou, Professor, IMT Mines Albi, President and founder of WasteEng

THE RAPSODEE LABORATORY IS A FORERUNNER IN THE FIELD

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The work of the RAPSODEE laboratory (Research in Process Engineering of Divided Solids, Energy and the Environment) UMR CNRS 5302 of IMT Mines Albi concerns in particular the production of energy vectors and materials with controlled properties as well as processes using renewable energies (solar, biomass). Professor Ange Nzihou has made a significant contribution to the development of these themes.

Equipped with a technological platform that is attractive to companies, the RAPSODEE laboratory maintains numerous collaborations that anchor its work in industrial reality. Named Valthera (VALorisation THErmique des Résidus de transformation des Agro ressources), this platform enables the development of high energy efficiency thermal processes for the valorisation of biomass transformation residues and by-products.

In addition to having contributed to the structuring of an international scientific community around waste valorization, Ange Nzihou is also the head of an international peer-reviewed journal that he created and dedicated to this topic: "Waste and biomass valorization", published since 2010 by Springer Nature. Ange Nzihou has also written an encyclopaedia on the characterisation of biomass and bio-waste, which brings together contributions from researchers from 17 countries around the world. A trusted reference, this book is intended for all engineers, students, researchers or industrialists who wish to develop their knowledge to analyse, study, treat and convert biomass, waste and various residues from human and industrial activity.