Dr Zhanying Zhang is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy (CAB, previously Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities – CTCB) at QUT. He is also an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow (2018-2021). Dr Zhang obtained his B. Eng (Biochemical) from Zhengzhou University of Light Industry (2001), M. Eng (Biochemical) from East China University of Science and Technology (2004) and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Adelaide (2008). Dr Zhang’s primary research areas are industrial biotechnology and biorefining, aiming at development of innovative technologies to convert agricultural biomass to value-added products (biofuels, biochemicals, nutraceuticals and functional materials), and to process waste for disposal cost reduction and resource recovery.  Dr Zhang discovered and developed 3 solvent-based biomass pretreatment technologies in 2008 – 2014, which led to ~30 patent applications within 3 patent families since 2012. So far, 11 patents have been granted.

Dr Zhang’s research has attracted significant interests from industry. Dr Zhang led and is leading several significant research projects and project activities in collaboration with industry partners since 2015. These projects and project activities include (1) development of biorefinery processes (for various products) based on acid-catalysed glycerol pretreatment, (2) cost-effective pretreatment of sugarcane fibres for improved biogas production, (3) food waste processing to extract high-value nutraceuticals, (4) animal waste (paunch, hair, etc.) and biosolids processing for cost reduction and value-adding, and (5) textile waste treatment for resource recovery.  Dr Zhang has published more than 60 journal articles in the areas of industrial biotechnology and biorefining, including many top Q1 publications in Green Chemistry, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, and Bioresource Technology.