Bio-In Seminar Series: Turning the Page in Aviation — Growth, Availability, and Sustainability

Learn more about the state of the art in commercial manufacturing of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and elucidate a path forward. Various elements of the necessary ecosystem including but not limited to feedstock, technology, policy, and finance will be discussed.

Join us in-person or online!

Mukund Karanjikar

Mukund Karanjikar is founder and CEO of CleanJoule Inc., a U.S.-based fuel technology company advancing high-performance sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). An inventor with 20+ patents, he previously led Technology Holding and worked at Chevron and Rallis India Ltd. He has served as a visiting fellow at Harvard University, adjunct faculty at the University of Utah, and on expert panels for the International Energy Agency, Bureau of Land Management of the Department of Interior, and Industrial Research Institute. Former chair of the Management Division at the American Institue of Chemical Engineers, he holds a Chemical Engineering degree from ICT Mumbai and a PhD from Auburn University.

Aviation fuel demand is expected to grow to 160-210 billion gallons globally by 2050 from the current 95 B gallons. In parallel, surface transport is rapidly electrifying. The world is faced with the challenge of accurately predicting petroleum demand as surface transport fuels and aviation fuels are produced from the same barrel. All the same, decarbonization of aviation remains to be a substantial challenge. Such challenge needs to be addressed head on by developing alternative sources of aviation fuel that will decouple the aviation industry from the petroleum industry.