Dr. Sudha Esakkimuthu is a researcher in the Renewable Materials Composites research group at InnoRenew CoE. She earned her master’s degree in chemistry and a post-master’s degree in biorefinery: bioenergy, bioproducts and biomaterials. She received the French ministerial fellowship for her doctoral research and obtained her doctorate in 2020 from the Graduate School of Engineering in Paper, Print Media and Biomaterials, Grenoble Institute of Technology and the University Grenoble Alpes. She joined InnoRenew CoE as a researcher in May 2020, and she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (MSCA) in 2021.

   

Dr. Esakkimuthu’s areas of expertise are valorization of lignin for bio-based applications, functional group modification and characterization of lignin using different analytical techniques (GCMS, HPLC and SEC). At InnoRenew CoE, she focuses on physicochemical characterization and valorization of lignin for potential applications, including packaging. She also investigates development of analytical techniques for lignin and biomass-based compounds as well as extraction and identification of polyphenolic compounds from bark and olive mill wastewater using HPLC-qTOF (MS/MS).  

Dr. Esakkimuthu received the MSCA fellowship to work on the PACK-NIN project from April 2021 to March 2023.