Charles Cai
Associate Research Professor
Charles Cai is an Associate Research Faculty at CE-CERT and Adjunct Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering at UC Riverside. His work focuses on developing technologies to convert plant waste into renewable fuels and functional plant-based materials.
His research centers on the biological and catalytic processing of agricultural and forestry residues - also known as lignocellulosic biomass - to enable environmentally sustainable production of next-generation biofuels.
Charles is also developing mild pulping methods for wood residues, orchard waste, and industrial hemp to enable more cost-effective pulp-based products while reducing hazardous waste emissions.
He was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017 and is the inventor of the patented Co-solvent Enhanced Lignocellulosic Fractionation (CELF) process.
