Amar K. Mohanty

Mohanty was born in Odisha, India. He spent early life in Cuttack and Bubaneshwar, India. He studied at the Capital High School, Bhubaneswar. Mohanty then studied at Utkal University, and earned his bachelor's degree with Distinction in Chemistry in 1978, a Master's degree in Polymer Chemistry in 1980, and Doctoral degree in Chemistry in 1987.^[8]

Following his Doctoral degree, Mohanty held appointment as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in 1987 at Government Colleges affiliated with Berhampur and Utkal University, India. From 1998 till 1999, he held brief appointments as Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Technische Universität Berlin, and as Post-Doctoral Associate at Iowa State University. Following these appointments, he joined Michigan State University as a Visiting Research Associate in 2000, and was promoted to Visiting Associate Professor in 2001, and to associate professor in 2003. He then moved to Canada, and held his next appointment at the University of Guelph as a professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture and School of Engineering.^[1]

Mohanty was Premier's Research Chair in Biomaterials & Transportation from 2008 till 2020, Research Leadership Chair from 2017 till 2020, and became OAC Distinguished Research Chair in Sustainable Biomaterials in 2020. Since 2007, he has also been serving as Director/Executive ccommittee member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers at Forest Product Division.^[9]

Mohanty has focused his research on engineering value-added uses of biomass wastes and industrial co-products from agro-food and biofuel industries. He has also worked extensively on sustainable polymers, circular economy, environmental sustainability, waste plastic valorization, biodegradable plastics as single-use plastic alternatives, biocarbon based composites, and 3D printing of sustainable materials.^[10]

Mohanty was the first to demonstrate that biocarbon significantly improves barrier properties when used as a filler in composite materials. He demonstrated that biocarbon acts as an oxygen scavenger to improve oxygen barrier of biodegradable polymers and blends.^[11] Furthermore, he explored the impact of poly(propylene carbonate) polyol in the context of biobased epoxy interpenetrating network.^[12]

Mohanty was among the pioneers to report the effectiveness of bicarbon as a reinforcing agent, filler, and colourant in thermoplastic composites.^[13] He explored several ways to increase the renewable content in plastic resins, developed high-quality biocarbon from a variety of non-food biomass sources, and also showed that the morphology and allotropy of renewable biocarbon can be manipulated for materials design.^[14] He was the first to use biocarbon in thermoplastic composites and demonstrate its high potential in industrial applications, to be used as a reinforcement in polymer composite materials and to substitute carbon black,^[15] mineral fillers like talc, and short glass fibre.^[16] His research regarding biocarbon-based plastic biocomposites is used by Ford Motor Company, Volkswagen, General Motors, and Tesla, while conducting their trials of automotive parts.^{[citation needed]}

In his studies regarding bio-based plastics and bio-based fillers,^[17] Mohanty designed biocomposites to use closed-loop strategies to improve sustainability through the value-added integration of agri-food residues.^[18][19] While using "waste" from reclaimed coffee bean skins with more expensive compostable plastic blends, he developed numerous commercial resins, including the world's first 100% compostable coffee pod certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI).^[20] His invention combines the advantages of biodegradable plastics, green chemistry,^[21] reactive extrusion, and process engineering, along with the integration of the industrial 'waste' product of the coffee roasting industry.^[22] Mohanty along with Misra also developed a "green floor" formulation, based on a plant derived plastic resin, poly(lactic acid) (PLA). His innovation eliminated plasticizers containing harmful phthalates.^[23]