Department of Chemical Engineering

Research Interests:

• Biofuel ethanol: all processing steps to convert lignocellulosics (plants and trees) into green ethanol (AFEX pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, ethanolic fermentation, pervaporation).
• Enzymatic hydrolysis: synergy of cellulases; purification and immobilization of cellulases; AFM; binding force between cellulases and cellulose; kinetics of enzymatic catalysis.
• Mixing in enzymatic hydrolysis: rheology of concentrated suspensions of plant fiber materials; modelization of mixing; bioreactor design.
• Recombinant cellulases in transgenic plants: genetic engineering; auto-hydrolysis; enzyme over-production.
• Anaerobic digestion of agricultural and food wastes.

Selected Publications:

Gu, H., Wu, J., Chan, P., Turcotte, G. and Ye, T. Hydrophobicity modification of polypropylene microfiltration membrane by ozonation. Chem. Eng. Res. Design 90:229-237, 2012.

Aroujalian, A., Belkacemi, K., Davids, S.J., Turcotte, G. and Pouliot, Y. Effect of residual sugars in fermentation broth on pervaporation flux and selectivity for ethanol. Desalination 193:103-108, 2006.

Bae, H.-J., Turcotte, G., Soo Kim, Y., Vezina, L.-P. and Laberge, S. Cel6B of Thermobifidus fusca and a Cel5-CBM6 of Ruminococcus albus containing a cellulose binding site show synergistic effect on hydrolysis of native plant cellulose. FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 233(2):325-331, 2004.

Davids, S.J., Yaylayan, V. A. and Turcotte, G. Effect of thermal treatment of incubated potato juice on the formation of Maillard volatiles. Int. J. Food Sci. Tech. 38(8):849-856, 2003.

Belkacemi, K., Turcotte, G. and Savoie, P. Aqueous/steam fractionated agricultural residues as substrates for ethanol production. Ind. & Eng. Chem. Res. 41(2):173-179, 2002.