Apostolis Koutinas is Chemical Engineer (University of Patras, Greece) with PhD in biochemical engineering (UMIST, UK). His research focuses on biorefinery development, design and costing for efficient valorisation of crude renewable resources (e.g. food industry side streams, organic fractions of municipal solid wastes, lignocellulosic biomass) for the production of bio-based products (e.g. food additives, biopolymers, platform chemicals). His research also focusses on the evaluation of process sustainability via process design, techno-economic evaluation and life cycle assessment. Specific research topics of interest are included below:

• Refining and bioconversion of crude renewable resources for the production of value-added fractions (e.g. protein isolates, antioxidants), microbial oil, platform chemicals (e.g. succinic acid), biopolymers (e.g. polyhydroxyalkanoates, bacterial cellulose) and food additives (e.g. microbial protein)
• Utilisation of electricity-driven technologies for biorefinery development and post-consumer bioplastic recycling
• Chemical and biological recycling of post-consumer bioplastics and CO₂ bioconversion for the production of non-conventional carbon sources for fermentation development
• Application of computer-aided design, costing and life cycle assessment studies to evaluate and optimise biorefinery concepts and microbial bioprocesses

Since 2011, he has participated in more than 45 research projects funded by national and international funding agencies and the industry, with total funding of more than €9.000.000 for his research group. He has more than 220 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (h-index 63, scopus) and 21 book chapters. He serves as co-Editor in the Biochemical Engineering Journal (Elsevier).