Professor William Doherty

PhD (University of East London)

Professor Bill Doherty is an industrial chemist and the Theme Leader of the Processing Chemistry Research Group.  He is a leading authority in biomass fractionation/pretreatment technologies, hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass to energy and chemicals, fouling of heat exchangers, chemistry of sugar juice clarification, and the development of biodegradable composite materials.  His current interests include, thermochemical processing of biomass (including algae and fungi), surface and colloidal chemistry, catalytic lignin valorisation to aromatic chemicals and dicarboxylic acids, design of heterogeneous catalysts for the upgrading of biomass derived bio-oils to fuels, and scale control and removal. Over the last 10 years, Prof Doherty has attracted over $15 M from industry partners and Australian Research Council. He has over 150 publications, commission research, reviews and book chapters. Prof Doherty has 4 patents of which the most successful is the glycerol-acid pretreatment of biomass. He has reviewed Australian Research Council Discovery grants, USDA, SRDC and UNSW grant proposals Prof Doherty has been associated with the Australian Sugarcane Industry for the past 20 years.  He has been generating original research ideas, planning and executing R&D and consulting projects, and training factory staff which have contributed to progressive development of the sugar industry.  As a consequence of Prof Doherty’s work in sugar manufacture, in 2010 obtained Sugar Research Development Corporation Top Award for outstanding achievement in innovation in Research and Development in sugar manufacturing.  In the past 10 years, 7 of his postgraduate students have received Postgraduate Sugar Research Awards by the Australian Society of Sugarcane Technologist (ASSCT). In 2015, ASSCT Awarded Prof Doherty the Presidential Medal for Best Research Paper on Milling Technology. Prof Doherty is currently leading a major Grand challenge in biomass utilisation funded by the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF) to develop technologies for economically sustainable bio-based energy. Prof Doherty was one of the Project Leaders in the CRC Sugar Industry Innovation for Biotechnology and won the Chairman’s award (2008) for the best CRC SIIB patent for initiating the ground-breaking work on water-based lignin coatings. Prof Doherty was awarded in 2013 a certificate by QUT in recognition for supervising an Outstanding Doctoral Thesis.

Additional information