Chinmoy Baroi, Ph.D., joined the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) in 2019. He is the Associate Director for Technology Maturation and serves as the head of Direct Air Capture (DAC) and DAC Hub business development at ISTC and the Net-Zero Center of Excellence under the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Baroi’s business development efforts have resulted in three DAC Hub projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the most prestigious of which is the “Illinois Basin DAC Hub,” which he is actively managing.
Baroi holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He has more than 15 years of research and development experience in catalysis, reaction engineering, renewable energy research, shale gas conversion, carbon dioxide capture and conversion, techno-economics, and life-cycle analysis. Before joining ISTC, he was a postdoctoral fellow at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), USA.
Baroi is also serving as one of “Canada’s Global Executives,” a prestigious voluntary position appointed by the government of Canada to Canadian citizens with a global reputation in their subject matter.
Baroi leverages his R&D experience to identify promising technologies, working with University groups, spin-offs, start-ups, private funding groups, venture capital groups, accelerator groups, and U.S. and foreign government funding agencies to mature promising technologies in various areas, including but not limited to: carbon management, net-zero emissions, and critical minerals.
Besides working with external groups, Baroi has developed a novel plasma-based gaseous compounds capture and conversion technology that is currently under development and further maturation.