Pranav Majgaonkar pursued his Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from Mumbai University, India between 2013 – 2017 and his Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Ulm University, Germany between 2017 – 2019. In November 2019, he graduated from Ulm University, Germany after successfully defending his master thesis titled “Process Development for Chemical Recycling of Bio-based Polymers”. He is currently employed as a research assistant at Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology and is actively involved in the research cluster Fraunhofer CCPE which is focussed on developing advanced chemical recycling strategies for petro-chemical and bio-based plastics. Since December 2020, he is working as an external PhD student at the Institute of Process Systems Engineering.

In his research, Mr. Majgaonkar aims to develop chemical recycling strategies for common poly-condensed fractions present in post-consumer and post-industrial waste streams. His work revolves around the use of low-molecular weight organic catalysts in order to depolymerise these macromolecules and the subsequent kinetic modelling. In addition to this, his research also emphasises on the recovery of these catalysts using conventional organic solvent nano-filtration and the purification of the product with the help of an appropriate, energy-efficient down streaming strategy. In a nutshell, his dissertation aims at utilising the fundamentals of process synthesis and intensification for developing holistic yet industrially feasible chemical recycling strategies while strictly abiding by the principles of green chemistry and sustainable chemical engineering.