Shima is a PhD student in the Department of Biological and Chemical engineering, at the University of Saskatchewan. She is doing her research related to algal biofuels titled “Hydrothermal liquefaction of microalgae to produce bio-crude oil and hydro-char, and upgradation of bio-crude oil over algal hydro-char based catalysts”, under supervision of Dr. Dalai. She was awarded the Dean’s scholarship from the University of Saskatchewan.
Research: For the last few decades, by incremental human population, industrialization and energy consumption, there is a drastic increase in carbon dioxide emission to the environment. Due to the environmental concerns and limited resources of the traditional fossil fuel, more attention has been paid to the renewable energies. Due to high growth rate and high CO2 fixation ability of microalgae compared to other biomasses, the transition to liquid and solid fuels produced from microalgae has raised a lot of interests. Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of microalgae for production of biofuel under milder condition as well as appropriate use of the solid residue (hydro-char), which is the focus of her research, may confirm its feasibility as sustainable biofuel source.