Professor Shusheng Pang
Professor Shusheng Pang has a strong interest in using renewable sources for energy and new materials.
'The world will one day have to face the consequences of over-using fossil fuels, including global warming and use-up of the oil and gases. One of the solutions is to explore the full potential of renewable sources such as trees and other plants for future energy and fuels.' Professor Pang has been developing new technologies to convert these sources into energy and fuels in a more efficient and cleaner way compared to traditional methods. 'Our target is to reduce biomass transport costs and increase overall energy conversion efficiency thus making it feasible to build commercial biodiesel plants in New Zealand.'
Professor Pang also uses the potential benefit of wood as an example deserving more thorough exploration.
'My interest lies in developing new advanced materials such as wood-plastic composite and polymer exaction from wood to substitute fossil fuel based materials.'
His other interests include improving the energy efficiency and reducing the negative environmental impact of the wood processing industry, and improving understanding of wood properties. Professor Pang says his students benefit from his fundamental knowledge and experience in industrial operations.
Professor Pang is currently leading three multi-million dollar programmes, one on biomass gasification for clean energy, one on biomass to syngas and liquid fuel and the other on development of new wood-polymer composites as building materials.
He has a Bachelor in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering and Masters in Chemical Engineering from Hebei University of Technology in China; and a PhD in Chemical and Process Engineering from the University of Canterbury.
