Dr Saeid Baroutian

PhD, MEng, BEng, PGCert AcadPrac

Senior Lecturer

In: Chemical and Materials Engineering » Faculty of Engineering

Biography

Saeid is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering. He worked at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur (Senior Lecturer 2010-2011), the Crown Research Institute Scion (Research Fellow 2011-2013) and then at the University of Auckland (Research Fellow 2014-2016).

Saeid's research interests lie in the area of Process Engineering and the research that has an applied focus and able to apply his skills to provide solutions to problems and improve or integrate processes.

Research | Current

Saeid research group (Waste & Biomass Processing Group) has focused on waste reduction and value recovery from biomass, municipal solid waste and industrial residues and by-products. His aim is to develop cleaner, safer and more energy-efficient processes for development of high-value products from biological raw materials and waste.

Current Research Projects:

Deconstruction Processes

Wet oxidation of wastewater treatment sludge
Thermal hydrolysis of wastewater treatment sludge
Catalytic wet oxidation
Wet oxidation of biomass: Fundamental investigation of reactions
Hydrothermal treatment of putrescible food waste
Hydrothermal treatment of municipal solid waste

Conversion Processes

Hydrothermal carbonisation of woody biomass and food waste
Hydrothermal conversion of plastic waste
Hydrothermal liquefaction of plastic waste

Separation Processes

Extraction of bioactive antioxidant using subcritical water extraction
Supercritical fluid extraction
Capture and recovery of volatile anaesthetic gas

Biological Processes

Fungal pretreatment of biomass
Improving landfill methanogenesis efficiency

Teaching | Current

CHEMMAT 212 - Energy and Processing
CHEMMAT 772 - Advanced Food Process Engineering (Course Director)
CHEMMAT 757 - Engineering Biotechnology (Course Director)
CHEMMAT 751 A & B - Research Project (Course Director)

Postgraduate supervision

Postdoctoral Mentorship:

Dr Xing Xin

PhD supervision:

Sinemobong Essien, Main supervisor
Teck Nam Ang, Main supervisor
Mazdak Rasapoor, Main supervisor
Navid Taghavi, Main supervisor
Terrell Thompson, Main supervisor
Subhasree Bhaskar, Main Supervisor
Phuong Linh Ngo, Main Supervisor
Tian Kun, Main Supervisor

PhD co-supervision:

Yilin Li, main supervisor: Prof. Bryony James
Soniya Mohammadi, main supervisor:Dr Ali Seyfoddine (AUT)
Beli Ebrahimi, main supervisor:Prof Jun Lu (AUT)

Distinctions/Honours

Early Career Research Excellence Award - The University of Auckland, April 2018
Teaching Portfolio Development Award - Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, December 2015
Engineering Excellence Award - Scion (New Zealand Forest Research Institute Ltd), October 2013

Areas of expertise

Hydrothermal processing
Bioenergy
Separation and reaction systems
Wastewater treatment
Solid waste treatment
Resource recovery

Committees/Professional groups/Services

Research Committee, Faculty of Engineering
Safety Committee, Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering
Research Committee, Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering
Teaching Committee, Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering
IChemE Auckland Branch Committee

Selected publications and creative works (Research Outputs)

Rasapoor, M., Young, B., Brar, R., & Baroutian, S. (2021). Enhancement of landfill gas generation from aged waste by a combination of moisture adjustment and application of biochar and neutral red additives: A field-scale study. Fuel, 283.10.1016/j.fuel.2020.118932
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Brent Young
Ang, T. N., Young, B. R., Taylor, M., Burrell, R., Aroua, M. K., & Baroutian, S. (2020). Tailoring of activated carbon with ammonia for enhanced anaesthetic sevoflurane adsorption. SEPARATION AND PURIFICATION TECHNOLOGY, 25110.1016/j.seppur.2020.117404
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Brent Young, Teck Nam Ang
Thompson, T. M., Young, B. R., & Baroutian, S. (2020). Efficiency of hydrothermal pretreatment on the anaerobic digestion of pelagic Sargassum for biogas and fertiliser recovery. FUEL, 27910.1016/j.fuel.2020.118527
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Terrell Thompson, Brent Young
Taghavi, N., Singhal, N., Zhuang, W.-Q., & Baroutian, S. (2020). Degradation of plastic waste using stimulated and naturally occurring microbial strains. Chemosphere, 26310.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.127975
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Naresh Singhal
Thayagaraja, R., Cheng, S. Y., Jones, M. I., & Baroutian, S. (2020). Catalytic wet oxidation of glucose as model compound of wastewater over copper/rare earth oxides catalysts. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 3610.1016/j.jwpe.2020.101251
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/51494
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Mark Jones
Ang, T. N., Young, B. R., Taylor, M., Burrell, R., Aroua, M. K., Chen, W.-H., & Baroutian, S. (2020). Enrichment of surface oxygen functionalities on activated carbon for adsorptive removal of sevoflurane. Chemosphere, 26010.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.127496
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Teck Nam Ang, Brent Young
Rasapoor, M., Young, B., Brar, R., & Baroutian, S. (2020). Improving biogas generation from aged landfill waste using moisture adjustment and neutral red additive – Case study: Hampton Downs’s landfill site. Energy Conversion and Management, 216.10.1016/j.enconman.2020.112947
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/51615
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Brent Young
Chen, W.-H., Lin, Y.-Y., Liu, H.-C., & Baroutian, S. (2020). Optimization of food waste hydrothermal liquefaction by a two-step process in association with a double analysis. ENERGY, 19910.1016/j.energy.2020.117438