Determine root causes of undesirable petcoke properties from the DCU

Ajay Gupta is the Principal Researcher in the R&D division of Reliance industries Ltd. He has 35 yr of experience in the petroleum and petrochemical industries. His areas of interest include modeling simulations, advanced process control, reactor hydrodynamics, and the scale-up of equipment. Dr. Gupta earned BTech and MTech degrees, as well as his PhD, from IIT–Delhi.

Sateesh Daggupati is General Manager in the Refining R&D division of Reliance Industries Ltd. in Jamnagar, India. His research interests include catalytic gasification; pyrolysis of petcoke, coal, biomass and waste plastic; CFD modelling; and clean coal technologies. Dr. Sateesh has authored articles in five peer-reviewed journals and filed seven patent disclosures.

Harender Bisht joined Reliance Industries Ltd. in 2009 and works as Group Lead for fluid bed and coking process development in research and development. His work is focused on residue upgrading processes and high-value carbon materials. Dr. Bisht holds a PhD in polymer science from the Indian Institute of Petroleum in Dehradun. From 2003–2005 he completed post-doctoral studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, on temperature and pH responsive smart polymers. He taught nanotechnology from 2006–2007 at the Amity Institute of Nanotechnology in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, before completing his second post-doctoral studies in 2009 at Bourgogne University in Dijon, France on the functionalization of iron oxide nanoparticles for MRI application.

Sukumar Mandal is a Vice President and leads the FCC, coker and gasification research groups in the refining R&D division of Reliance Industries Ltd. in Jamnagar, India. He has 29 yr of research experience in refining processes and petrochemicals with several patents and publications to his credit. Mr. Mandal holds degrees in chemical engineering (MTech) from IIT, Kanpur.

Asit K. Das is the Head of Refinery R&D and Process Development of Reliance Industries Ltd. in Jamnagar, India. He has more than 33 yr of research experience in refining and petrochemical segments. He has developed and commercialized many processes and has more than 80 patents, 70 publications and five book chapters to his credit. He has guided several PhD and MTech theses and board members in advisory council for several academic institutions. He is also the current President of the Engineering Science section to organize the Indian Science Congress 2020.