Kalpit Shah

Professor Kalpit Shah

Acting Assistant Associate Dean, Chemical and Environmental Engineering Discipline

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Contact details

STEM | School of Engineering

ARC Training Centre for Transforming Biosolids

ARC Research Hub for Transformation of Reclaimed Waste Resources to Engineered Materials and Solutions for a Circular Economy

Email: kalpit.shah@rmit.edu.au

Phone: +61 39925 1109

Campus: Melbourne City

Programs

 PROC2121 - Chemical Engineering Computer Design

 PROC 2126  - Chemical Engineering Design Project

 PROC 2127  - Chemical Engineering Design Project

 OENG 1167 - Capstone Project

 OENG 1168 - Capstone Project

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Profile photo of Kalpit Shah smiling towards the camera against a brick wall

Contact details

STEM | School of Engineering

ARC Training Centre for Transforming Biosolids

ARC Research Hub for Transformation of Reclaimed Waste Resources to Engineered Materials and Solutions for a Circular Economy

Email: kalpit.shah@rmit.edu.au

Phone: +61 39925 1109

Campus: Melbourne City

Programs

 BH126 - Bachelor of Engineering

 BH079  - Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical Engineering)

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Kalpit is a Professor in Chemical Engineering, Deputy Director of ARC Training Centre for Transforming Australia's Biosolids Resource and a Co-Leader of Innovative Resource and Waste Conversion Technologies (iRWT) Research Group,

Overview

Kalpit is a Professor, Acting Assistant Associate Dean, Group Leader for innovative Resource and Waste Conversion Technologies (iRWT) research group in Chemical and Environmental Engineering discipline of School of Engineering at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is also a Deputy Director (Academic) for the ARC training centre for Transforming Biosolids.

His current research projects and career interests include the fundamental and applied research in chemical engineering and science, in particular in the area of sustainable management of waste and its conversion to high value products. He carries over 20 years of valuable research and industrial consultancy experience. He has published over 90 journal papers and holds 9 patents in Australia in last 10 years.

Kalpit's assets are the sound fundamental chemical engineering knowledge and innovations in the process engineering and energy field together with first-rate hands on experience in industry type R&D projects. He also has contributed to process/reactor design, project management, installation and commissioning activities in chemical / petrochemical / energy industries as well as underwrote several patents in Australia and overseas.

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Industry experience

Shah has worked in industry on several roles such as process engineer trainee, process engineer, senior process engineer and senior executive projects

Professional Engagement

  • Guest Editor in Bioenergy and Biofuels Section, Frontiers in Energy Research in 2021.
  • Associate Editor in Frontiers in Energy Research since 2016.
  • Reviewer of International Coal Science and Technology Conference 2015.
  • Reviewer of Chemical Looping Conference 2014.
  • Reviewer of Australian Combustion Symposium since 2011.
  • Reviewer of 25+ Q1 journals in the field since 2011.
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Research

Kalpit's research interest and projects are in the area of developing advance thermal/hydrothermal systems, advance carbon material synthesis, waste and resource to energy and materials and emissions and contaminants capture, destruction and removal.

Research keywords

Waste, Biomass, Energy, Carbon materials, Emissions, Contaminants

Research output summary

108

Publications

24

Grants

7

Awards

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Supervisor interest areas

  • Waste
  • Biomass
  • Energy
  • Carbon materials
  • Emissions
  • Contaminants

Supervisor projects

  • Investigations into hydrothermal processing of a wet lignocellulosic paunch waste
  • Investigations on Ionic Liquid Pre-treatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass for the Production of Biofuels and Platform Chemicals
  • Slow pyrolysis of biosolids for the production of biochar

Feature publications

Progress on the pre-treatment of lignocellulosic biomass employing ionic liquids

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 105, pp.268-292

Halder, P., Kundu, S., Patel, S., Setiawan, A., Atkin, R., Parthasarthy, R., Paz-Ferreiro, J., Surapaneni, A. and Shah, K., (2019). 

Wet organic waste treatment via hydrothermal processing: A critical review

Journal of Cleaner Production, 289, 1 - 17

Marzbali, M.H., Kundu, S., Halder, P., Patel, S., Hakeem, I.G., Paz-Ferreiro, J., Madapusi, S., Surapaneni, A. and Shah, K., (2021). 

 Production of hydrogen by catalytic methane decomposition using biochar and activated char produced from biosolids pyrolysis

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 45(55), pp.29978-29992

Patel, S., Kundu, S., Halder, P., Marzbali, M.H., Chiang, K., Surapaneni, A. and Shah, K., (2020).

Key publications by year

Expand all sections

  • Halder, P., Hakeem, I., Patel, S., Shah, S., Khan, H., Shah, K. Prospects of bioelectricity in south Asian developing countries– a sustainable solution for future electricity. In Renewable Energy and Sustainability, Elsevier, 2021.
  • 2. Halder, P., Patel, S., Kundu, S., Pramanik, B., Parthasarathy, R., Shah, K. Potential of ionic liquid applications in natural gas/biogas sweetening and liquid fuel cleaning process. In Bioenergy Resources and Technologies. Academic Press, Elsevier, 2021.
  • ike, C.C., Shahsavari, E., Surapaneni, A., Shah, K., Ball, A.S. Can biochar be an effective and reliable biostimulating agent for the remediation of hydrocarbon-contaminated soils? (2021) 154, art. no. 106553.
  • Marzbali, M.H., Kundu, S., Halder, P., Patel, S., Hakeem, I.G., Paz-Ferreiro, J., Madapusi, S., Surapaneni, A., Shah, K. Wet organic waste treatment via hydrothermal processing: A critical review (2021) 279, art. no. 130557.
  • Monira, S., Bhuiyan, M.A., Haque, N., Shah, K., Roychand, R., Hai, F.I., Pramanik, B.K. Understanding the fate and control of road dust-associated microplastics in stormwater (2021) 152, pp. 47-57.
  • Hakeem, I.G., Halder, P., Marzbali, M.H., Patel, S., Kundu, S., Paz-Ferreiro, J., Surapaneni, A., Shah, K. Research progress on levoglucosan production via pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass and its effective recovery from bio-oil (2021) 9 (4), art. no. 105614.
  • Bhatt, M., Chakinala, A.G., Joshi, J.B., Sharma, A., Pant, K.K., Shah, K., Sharma, A. Valorization of solid waste using advanced thermo-chemical process: A review (2021) 9 (4), art. no. 105434.
  • Roychand, R., Patel, S., Halder, P., Kundu, S., Hampton, J., Bergmann, D., Surapaneni, A., Shah, K., Pramanik, B.K. Recycling biosolids as cement composites in raw, pyrolyzed and ashed forms: A waste utilisation approach to support circular economy (2021) 38, art. no. 102199, .
  • Veluswamy, G.K., Shah, K., Ball, A.S., Guwy, A.J., Dinsdale, R.M. A techno-economic case for volatile fatty acid production for increased sustainability in the wastewater treatment industry (2021) 7 (5), pp. 927-941.
  • Figueiredo, C.C.D., Reis, A.D.S.P.J., Araujo, A.S.D., Blum, L.E.B., Shah, K., Paz-Ferreiro, J. Assessing the potential of sewage sludge-derived biochar as a novel phosphorus fertilizer: Influence of extractant solutions and pyrolysis temperatures (2021) 124, pp. 144-153.
  • Kundu, S., Patel, S., Halder, P., Patel, T., Hedayati Marzbali, M., Pramanik, B.K., Paz-Ferreiro, J., De Figueiredo, C.C., Bergmann, D., Surapaneni, A., Megharaj, M., Shah, K. Removal of PFASs from biosolids using a semi-pilot scale pyrolysis reactor and the application of biosolids derived biochar for the removal of PFASs from contaminated water (2021) 7 (3), pp. 638-649.
  • Sivaram, A.K., Logeshwaran, P., Surapaneni, A., Shah, K., Crosbie, N., Rogers, Z., Lee, E., Venkatraman, K., Kannan, K., Naidu, R., Megharaj, M. Evaluation of Cyto-genotoxicity of Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) to Allium cepa (2021) 40 (3), pp. 792-798.
  • Halder, P., Patel, S., Kundu, S., Gbolahan Hakeem, I., Hedayati Marzbali, M., Pramanik, B., Shah, K. Dissolution reaction kinetics and mass transfer during aqueous choline chloride pre-treatment of oak wood (2021) 322, art. no. 124519.
  • Marzbali, M.H., Paz-Ferreiro, J., Kundu, S., Ramezani, M., Halder, P., Patel, S., White, T., Madapusi, S., Shah, K. Investigations into distribution and characterisation of products formed during hydrothermal carbonisation of paunch waste (2021) 9 (1), art. no. 104672, .
  • Chagas, J.K.M., Figueiredo, C.C.D., Silva, J.D., Shah, K., Paz-Ferreiro, J. Long-term effects of sewage sludge–derived biochar on the accumulation and availability of trace elements in a tropical soil (2021) 50 (1), pp. 264-277.
  • Halder, P., Kundu, S., Patel, S., Marzbali, M.H., Parthasarathy, R., Shah, K. Furfural and levoglucosenone production from the pyrolysis of ionic liquid pre-treated sugarcane straw (2021) 28 (1), pp. 133-151.

  • Dhanavath, K.N., Islam, M.S., Bankupalli, S., Bhargava, S.K., Shah, K., Parthasarathy, R. Experimental investigations on the effect of pyrolytic bio-oil during the liquefaction of Karanja Press Seed Cake (2017) 5 (5), pp. 4986-4993.
  • Dhanavath, K.N., Shah, K., Bankupalli, S., Bhargava, S.K., Parthasarathy, R. Derivation of optimum operating conditions for the slow pyrolysis of Mahua press seed cake in a fixed bed batch reactor for bio-oil production (2017) 5 (4), pp. 4051-4063.
  • Ramezani, M., Tremain, P., Shah, K., Doroodchi, E., Moghtaderi, B. Derivation of Kinetics and Design Parameters for a Carbonator Reactor in a Greenhouse Calcium Looping Process (2017) 5 (5), pp. 644-655.
  • Cummings, J., Tremain, P., Shah, K., Heldt, E., Moghtaderi, B., Atkin, R., Kundu, S., Vuthaluru, H. Modification of lignites via low temperature ionic liquid treatment (2017) 155, pp. 51-58.
  • To, T.Q., Shah, K., Tremain, P., Simmons, B.A., Moghtaderi, B., Atkin, R. Treatment of lignite and thermal coal with low cost amino acid based ionic liquid-water mixtures (2017) 202, pp. 296-306.
  • Zhou, C., Tremain, P., Doroodchi, E., Moghtaderi, B., Shah, K. A novel slag carbon arrestor process for energy recovery in steelmaking industry (2017) 155, pp. 124-133.

  • Zhou, C., Remoroza, A.I., Shah, K., Doroodchi, E., Moghtaderi, B. Experimental study of static and dynamic interactions between supercritical CO2/water and Australian granites (2016) 64, pp. 246-261.
  • Alghamdi, Y., Peng, Z., Shah, K., Moghtaderi, B., Doroodchi, E. A correlation for predicting solids holdup in the dilute pneumatic conveying flow regime of circulating and interconnected fluidised beds (2016) 297, pp. 357-366.
  • Khairul, M.A., Shah, K., Doroodchi, E., Azizian, R., Moghtaderi, B. Effects of surfactant on stability and thermo-physical properties of metal oxide nanofluids (2016) 98, pp. 778-787.
  • Dar, T., Shah, K., Moghtaderi, B., Page, A.J. Formation of persistent organic pollutants from 2,4,5-trichlorothiophenol combustion: a density functional theory investigation (2016) 22 (6), art. no. 128, .
  • Zhou, C., Shah, K., Song, H., Zanganeh, J., Doroodchi, E., Moghtaderi, B. Integration Options and Economic Analysis of an Integrated Chemical Looping Air Separation Process for Oxy-fuel Combustion (2016) 30 (3), pp. 1741-1755.
  • Patel, S., Tremain, P., Sandford, J., Moghtaderi, B., Shah, K. Empirical Kinetic Model of a Stone Dust Looping Carbonator for Ventilation Air Methane Abatement (2016) 30 (3), pp. 1869-1878.
  • Yin, F., Shah, K., Zhou, C., Tremain, P., Yu, J., Doroodchi, E., Moghtaderi, B. Novel Calcium-Looping-Based Biomass-Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle: Thermodynamic Modeling and Experimental Study (2016) 30 (3), pp. 1730-1740.

  • Shah, K., Moghtaderi, B., Doroodchi, E., Sandford, J. A feasibility study on a novel stone dust looping process for abatement of ventilation air methane (2015) 140, pp. 285-296.
  • Shah, K., Cieplik, M., Vuthaluru, H. A Review on ash formation during pulverized fuel combustion: State of art and future research needs. In Advances in Bioprocess Technology. Springer, 2015.
  • Alghamdi, Y., Peng, Z., Shah, K., Moghtaderi, B., Doroodchi, E. Predicting the solid circulation rate in chemical looping combustion systems using pressure drop measurements (2015) 286, pp. 572-581.
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Feature projects

ARC Research Hub for Transformation of Reclaimed Waste Resources to Engineered Materials and Solutions for a Circular Economy

($5M ARC, $3.5M Industries) - Leading $0.6M project in the Hub

2020- 2025

ARC Training Centre for transformation of Australia’s biosolids resource, ARC Training Centre

($3.8M ARC, $1.1M Industries) - Deputy Director and Leading $1.2M project in the Training Centre

2019-2024

Plastics to carbon nanofibers

ARC DECRA Fellowship ($375k, Lead/Sole CI)

2017-2019

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Awards

Excellence in Research Award from School of Engineering, RMIT University

Award date: 2020

Recipients: Shah Kalpit

Recognition of Outstanding Student Experience (ROSE) Award from College of Science, Engineering and Health, RMIT University,

Award date: 2019

Recipients: Shah Kalpit

Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Australian Research Council

Award date: 2017

Recipients: Shah Kalpit

Key awards by year

Expand all sections

  • Excellence in Research Award from School of Engineering (RMIT University)

  • Melbourne Water Innovation Award (team award)
  • Recognition of Outstanding Student Experience (ROSE) Award from College of Science, Engineering and Health (RMIT University)

  • Certificate of Recognition of Excellence in Teaching (RMIT University)

  • Discovery Early Career Researcher Award

  • Engineers Australia’s Excellence Award for Pilot Demonstration (team award)

  • Faculty Award for Excellence in Research (University of Newcastle)

  • Top Teachers Award (University of Newcastle), 2013-2014
  • Best Paper Award (2nd International Chemical Looping Conference, Sweden)
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Grants

Key grants and funding: Career total funding: ~$28.1M, As Lead/Co-Lead CI: $4.6M)

National competitive grants:(Total $15M, ARC $10M, Industries $5M, as Lead CI: $2.5M)

  • Setunge S, Mendis, P, Wang H, Tam V, Ralph H, Fernando N, Polonsky M, Chouhdury N, Shah K, and 15 other CIs. ARC Research Hub for Transformation of Reclaimed Waste Resources to Engineered Materials and Solutions for a Circular Economy (2020-25: $5M ARC, $3.5M Industries) - Leading $0.6M project in the Hub
  • Ball A, Shah K, Batstone D, Rayn M, Stuetz R, …Smith S. ARC Training Centre for transformation of Australia’s biosolids resource, ARC Training Centre (2019-24: $3.8M ARC, $1.1M Industries) - Deputy Director and Leading $1.2M project in the Training Centre
  • Mallavarapu M, Shah K. Remediation of PFAS in current and legacy biosolids application sites, ARC Special Research Initiative (2019-21:$650k ARC, $200k Industry) - RMIT Lead/Sole Investigator – RMIT component -$300k
  • Moghtaderi B, Shah K, Yu J. Mineral looping tar removal, ARC Linkage (2017-19: $309k ARC, $222k Industry) - RMIT Lead/Sole Investigator – RMIT component -$150k
  • Shah K. Plastics to carbon nanofibers, ARC DECRA Fellowship (2017-19: $375k, Lead/Sole CI)
  • Moghtaderi B, Wall T, Shah K. Novel chemical looping methanol production method, ARC Discovery Project (2014-16: $270k)

State or local government funding: Total $11.6M, Government: $9M, Industries: $2.6M

  • Moghtaderi B, Doroodchi E, Shah K (Project Manager). Chemical Looping VAM Abatement Technology Development, Commonwealth Funding (2014-17: $5.6 million)

Industry funding (Total: ~$2.1M, Lead CI: $1.7M, Co-Lead: ~0.4M)

  • Roddick F, Shah K, Fan L. Rethinking Wastewater treatment plant -Melbourne Water Innovation Challenge Award, Melbourne Water (2020-21:$237k, Co-Lead CI)
  • Pramanik B, Bhuyian M, Shah K, Roychand R. SPEL Baffle Box for Micro-plastics Removal – SPEL Pty Ltd. (2020-21: $25k)
  • Shah K, Kundu S, Halder P, Pramanik B. Nutrient recovery from wastewater: Literature review and Australian Post Graduation Internship Program, South East Water (2019-21: $45k, Lead CI)
  • Shah K, Kundu S, Patel S, Madapusi S, Chaing K, Choudhury N. Carbon nanomaterial and hydrogen production of wastewater: Experimental and modelling work and Australian Post Graduation Internship Program, South East Water (2019-21:$78k, Lead CI)
  • Shah K, Kundu S, Paz-Ferriro J, Madapusi S. Co-pyrolysis of Biosolids, South East Water-Melbourne Water-Intelligent Water Networks (2019-21: $60k, Lead CI)
  • Shah K, Paz-Ferriro J, Madapusi S, Rickards L, Griffn G. Biosolids to Biochar, EIP Opportunity Fund-South East Water-Intelligent Water Networks (2018-21: $656k, Lead CI)
  • Paz-Ferriro J, Shah K, Madapusi S. Hydrothermal/supercritical processing of Paunch waste, Australian Meat Processing Corporation (2018-19: $168k, Co-Lead CI)
  • Shah K, Moghtaderi B. Stone dust looping technology development Phase III, Australian Coal Association Research Program (2016-17: $352k, Lead CI until 2016)
  • Shah K, Moghtaderi B. Stone dust looping technology development Phase II, Australian Coal Association Research Program (2015-16: $235k, Lead CI)
  • Shah K, Moghtaderi B. Stone dust looping technology development Phase I, Australian Coal Association Research Program (2014-15: $173k, Lead CI)
  • Shah K, Moghatderi B, Luo C. VAM abatement technology assessment tool, Australian Coal Association Research Program (2014-15: $100k, Lead CI)
  • Shah K. Startup grant, University of Newcastle (2013-14: $25k, Lead/Sole CI)

RMIT grants (Total: $50k)

  • Shah K. Startup grant (2016-17: $50k, Lead/Sole CI)
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Public and media engagements

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

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aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.

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