Areas of Interest

Food, Pharmaceutical, and Biological Process Engineering

Nathan S. Mosier is a Full Professor in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University, and in 2015 was named the Indiana Soybean Alliance Soybean Utilization Endowed Chair. Dr. Mosier earned a B.S. in BioSystems Engineering from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from Purdue University. Dr. Mosier was also a NSF-IGERT Ph.D. Fellow in the Innovation Realization Laboratory at the Krannert School of Management.

Dr. Mosier has more than 15 years of experience in research related to biofuels and bioprocessing technology. He is the author or co-author of more than 50 journal publications, 7 book chapters, co-author of a textbook, and has 4 patents. Dr. Mosier's research addresses fundamental topics in bioprocessing with current projects in enzyme mimicking catalysts for transforming renewable resources to fuels and chemicals, cellulose pretreatment for biofuel and biochemical production, enzyme-based processing technology, fermentation process modeling, metabolomics and transcriptomics of fermentation, and bioprocess simulation.

Dr. Mosier teaches a course on biological thermodynamics and a course on process engineering of renewable resources. Both are core curriculum classes for the Purdue Biological Engineering major. Dr. Mosier is the co-author, with Dr. Michael Ladisch, of the textbook Modern Biotechnology: Connection Innovations in Microbiology and Biochemistry to Engineering Fundamentals.

Relevant Publications:

Athmanathan, A., Emery, I. R., Kuczek, T., Mosier, N. S., "Impact of Temperature, Moisture, and Storage Duration on the Chemical Composition of Switchgrass, Corn Stover, and Sweet Sorghum Bagasse," BioEnergy Research, DOI: 10.1007/s12155-014-9563-0 (2015).

Zhang, X.M., Hewetson, B.B., Mosier, N.S., "Kinetics of Maleic Acid and Aluminum Chloride Catalyzed Dehydration and Degradation of Glucose," Energy & Fuels, 29(4), 2387-2393, DOI:10.1021/ef502461s (2015).

Zeng, Y.N., Zhao, S., Wei, H., Tucker, M.P., Himmel, M.E., Mosier, N.S., Meilan, R., Ding, S.Y., "In situ Micro-Spectroscopic Investigation of Lignin in Poplar Cell Walls Pretreated by Maleic Acid," Biotechnology for Biofuels, 8, DOI: 10.1186/s13068-015-0312-1 (2015).

Parsell, T., Yohe, S., Degenstein, J., Jarrell, T., Klein, I., Gencer, E., Hewetson, B., Hurt, M., Kim, J.I., Choudhari, H., Saha, B., Meilan, R., Mosier, N., Ribeiro, F., Delgass, W.N., Chapple, C., Kenttamaa, H. I., Agrawal, R., Abu-Omar, M. M., "A Synergistic Biorefinery Based on Catalytic Conversion of Lignin Prior to Cellulose Starting from Lignocellulosic Biomass," Green Chemistry, 17, 1492-1499 (2015).

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