Dr. Tanner has industry experience in mining and minerals, oil and gas, and process control as well as industrial and academic research. She recently completed her Ph.D. in reaction engineering at Monash University and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Dr. Tanner is now an academic in the BioPRIA, and her research interests include biorefinery and waste biomass utilisation for sustainable fuels and chemicals production.
Research Interests
Joanne Tanner’s current research sits in the general area of sustainability and bio-refinery. Replacing traditional fossil fuel-based fuel and chemical production processes with analogous plants using sustainable biomass as the primary feed-stock. She is also interested in closed loop plastics recycling via thermo-chemical routes. She has industrial experience in the Process Control and industrial R&D sectors and a research background in thermo-chemistry and reaction engineering. She is familiar with batch, fluidised bed and en-trained flow reactor design for traditional and catalytic reactions. She is interested in reactor design and development, with a focus on the underlying chemistry of the process. Most of her projects are very hands on, and trying to involve industry partners as much as possible to make sure that her research is addressing real world problems. She is typically looking for projects that utilize an existing waste stream in order to add value to an existing process, create a new revenue stream, and increase the sustainability of our fuels and chemicals industry.