Using woody biomass to produce sugar/fuels, chemicals and fiber is the focus of Dr. Junyong Zhu’s work at the U.S. Forest Service and will be the focus of his work with the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance project. He is a scientific team leader at the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison Wisconsin and adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Specifically, Dr. Zhu’s research experience encompasses laboratory fundamental studies and commercial pulp mill demonstrations of his laboratory research findings, including commercial production of fibers using small diameter, softwood trees from forest thinning in the most modern thermo-mechanical pulp mill in the United States. He is the co-inventor of the robust pretreatment technology SPORL for efficient sugar production from woody biomass, especially softwoods.
Dr. Zhu serves as technical editor of TAPPI Journal, the official scientific publication of the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry. He also is the secretary of the AlChE Forest Bioproducts Division and a panel member of the State of Wisconsin Research Forum on Energy, Economics and the Environment.
Previously, Dr. Zhu was a faculty member with the Institute of Paper Science and Technology in Atlanta, Ga., and a scientist at Aerometircs, Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif.
He holds an MBA from Georgia State University and a Ph.D. in engineering from the University of California at Irvine.