Sibi Malayil Gopalan

Dr. Sibi Malayil Gopalan born and brought in Kerala, is often called God’s Own Country, India. He completed his masters, MSc-Chemistry from Mahatma Gandhi University Kottayam (2004) and MTech in Chemical Engineering (Industrial Catalysis) from Cochin University of Science and Technology (2009). Inspired by catalysis, he started his research in heterogeneous catalysis for the synthesis of a new generation sustainable aviation fuel in 2010 funded by University Grand Commission (UGC) in the form of Junior& Senior Research Fellow. Dr. Malayil Gopalan Sibi received his PhD in chemical science from AcSIR-Indian Institute of petroleum Dehradun in January 2016. The outcome of the research was the development of “Single-step route for lipids to bio-jet fuel”, Currently, this biofuel technology is under progress to be commercialization (TRL 8 stage) (Bio-Jet Fuel – Process for conversion of Non-Edible Oil into Renewable Aviation Fuel – Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (iip.res.in).

In 2016 February, he Joined in the Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry (SAIAMC) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), as a postdoctoral research Fellow and later moved to University of Lavel, Quebec under the guidance of Prof. Serge Kaliaguine & Prof. Trong On Do, where he stayed 16 months as a University Postdoctoral Research Fellow focus on magnetically separable nanocomposites for heterogeneous catalysis. Later, in 2018, he moved to Green Energy & Material Processing Laboratory (GEMP) at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) South Korea, as Research Professor under Brain Korea (BK+21) research Flagship, headed by Prof. Kim Jaehoon for developing green chemistry, green engineering, and clean technology to the society. During the time in SKKU, he specialised in the synthesis of various heterogeneous catalysts for renewable fuels from CO₂ and Biomass. He has published more than 25 research articles, reviews and book chapters, in international peer reviewed journals, in the conversion and recycling of CO₂ and Biomass. Moreover, he filed 7 Indian and 1 US patent in the same field.

Currently, Dr. Malayil Gopalan Sibi is working as an Individual Marie Sklodowska Curie Action (MSCA-2023-PF-01) fellow as well as senior researcher in the Materials-Envi Lab at the Nanotechnology Centre of the Centre for Energy and Environmental Technology (CEET), VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, under the mentorship of Prof. Radek Zbořil. His research broadly focuses to the synthesis of specially designed Single atom based heterogeneous catalysts for the development of sustainable catalytic process for alternative fuels (SAF) from biomass and CO₂.