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Ali Sultan Khan

PhD Student - Walsh Scholar

Research Interests

Coming from Islamabad, Pakistan (one of the hardly hit country by climate change) and witnessing 60% of the annual rainfall in 10 hours, I always had interest in climate change.

I completed my bachelors of agriculture sciences from PMAS- Arid agriculture university, Rawalpindi with agronomy majors, which allowed me to interact with farming community and witness the impacts of climate change on their livelihood. Therefore, my learning during bachelors and research experience during masters helped to find my interest in agriculture based greenhouse gases (sources, mechanism for emissions, their fate and most importantly their mitigation).

I have interest in greenhouse gas emissions related to fertilizers whether organic (slurry or digestate) or inorganic (synthetic fertilizers. I also have keen interest in livestock-related greenhouse emissions (generally enteric methane emissions).

Current Projects

I am currently working under the supervision of Dr. Dominika Krol and Dr. John Finn from Teagasc Johnstown Castle and Alexandre De Menezes from University of Galway on the “Farm-based biogas in Ireland” project. My PhD work is related to Environmental and economic sustainability of biogas / bio-methane production in Ireland through anaerobic digestion of slurry and various grass feedstocks.

A recent SEAI study predicted that biogas/bio-methane could contribute about 28% in Ireland’s fossil natural gas demand. This shows on-farm anaerobic digestion plants potential for producing renewable fuel as well as reducing on-farm GHG emissions.
Ultimately, my work will deliver the data regarding the nitrogen fertilizer replacement value (NFRV), nitrous oxide emissions factor, agronomic performance of different grass species produced with digestate as fertilizer. It will also determine the other greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions, while using substituting synthetic fertilizer with digestate from an anaerobic digestion plant, where feedstock is animal slurry and grass or grass silage.

Education

  • 2020  -   MSc Agriculture Science with Animal Biotechnology majors, Kyungpook National University (경북대학교), Sangju, Republic of Korea (South Korea)
  • 2017  -   BSc (Hons.) Agriculture with Agronomy majors, Pir Mehr Ali Shah – Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Ali has published several peer reviewed scientific papers.  A full list of his work is available on:

Ali's Google Scholar account

Ali's Publons account

Ali's Orcid account

Khan, A. S., Kim, J. T., Kim, D. W., Park, H. Y., & Kwon, C. H. (2018). Effect of Goat Grazing on Surface Water Quality of Alpine Grassland. Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science, 38(4), 349-356.

Abubakar, M., Naveed, M., Ahmad, Z., Cheema, S. A., Khan, A. S., Park, H. Y., & Kwon, C. H. (2020). Ameliorative Effect of Bacillus sp. MN-54 and Organic Amendments Combination on Maize Plants Growth and Physiology Under Chromium Toxicity. J. Agric. Sci, 12.

Khan, S., Mahmood, A., Korai, M., Ikram, R., Amin, M., Aslam, M., Afzal, M., Kalhoro, A., Khan, A., Nabi, G. and Ikram Ullah, 2021. Effect of different growing media on germination and growth of Terminalia mantaly L. under lath house conditions. Bioscience Research, 18(4): 3310-3315.