Arul Manikandan finished his undergrad to the doctoral degree in chemical engineering with a specialisation in biochemical engineering. His previous work envelops resource recovery from waste resources, upstream to downstream processing in microbial and algal biotechnology. He consistently worked on applying chemical engineering principles in the field of biotechnology for the valorisation of various industrial wastes to produce bio-commodities like biopolymers, biosorbent, biologically derived nanoparticles, biodiesel and biogas.

Presently, at Grain-4-lab, his research focuses on the biorefining of distillery waste and bioprocessing them through fermentation technology for lactic acid production.