Speakers

École Polytechnique, France

https://www.lpp.polytechnique.fr/-Olivier-Guaitella-

Short CV

Engineering Researcher at Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, École Polytechnique, Palaiseau (FR.)

PhD in plasma physics in 2006 by École Polytechnique.

Published 113 articles in scientific journals (WoS).

Works in the area(s) of Plasma Fluids Physics, Applied Physics, Chemical Engineering, Physical Chemistry.

Research interests

CO2 recycling is one of the biggest challenges of our time. Surprisingly, the response that plasma could provide to this challenge raises very similar scientific questions to new polymer deposition processes, biomedical applications or even the study of aerosol evolution in planetary atmospheres!

Non-Thermal Plasma interaction with surfaces at medium and high pressure (from 1 mbar to atmospheric pressure and beyond) is crucial for numerous applications but poorly understood. The system consisting of a plasma and a target (whether dielectric, metal, liquid...) need to be studied as a whole. We are developing advanced diagnostics to study both the plasma phase interacting with surfaces and the target itself under direct exposure, with high time and spatial resolution.

Affiliation

Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (UMR 7648), CNRS, Univ. Paris-Saclay,

Sorbonne Université, École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France

Queen's University, Canada

https://www.chem.queensu.ca/people/jessop-philip

Dr. Philip Jessop is the Head of the Chemistry Department and the Canada Research Chair of Green Chemistry at Queen’s University in Canada, honorary professor of the University of Jordan, adjunct professor at the Hashemite University in Jordan, and the Executive Research Director of Forward Water Technologies Inc. His research interests include green solvents, biomass conversion and CO2-responsive materials. Distinctions include the NSERC Polanyi Award (2008), Canadian Green Chemistry & Engineering Award (2012), the Eni Award (2013), NSERC Brockhouse Prize (2019), and Fellowships in the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the American Chemical Society. He served as the Chair of the Editorial Board for the journal Green Chemistry (2017-2022), has chaired three major international conferences including ICCDU IX, and helped create two spin-off companies and GreenCentre Canada, a centre for the commercialization of green chemistry technologies. His Tiktok video series “Jessop’s Which Is Greener?” has reached tens of thousands of viewers.

Heriot-Watt University, UK

https://researchportal.hw.ac.uk/en/persons/m-mercedes-maroto-valer

Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer (FRSE, FIChemE, FRSC, FRSA, FEI)

-  Champion and Director- UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC)

-  Director- EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Green Industrial Futures

-  Deputy Principal (Global Sustainability) and Director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS) at Heriot-Watt University

Prof Mercedes Maroto-Valer (FRSE, FIChemE, FRSC, FRSA, FEI) is Champion and Director of the UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) focused on accelerating the sustainable transition to net zero of industries. She has recently become Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Green Industrial Futures.

Prof Maroto-Valer is Deputy Principal (Global Sustainability) at Heriot-Watt University, leading the sustainability agenda, making a significant impact on achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across all the campus locations (UK, Dubai and Malaysia).  She is director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS) at Heriot-Watt University, where she holds the Robert Buchan Chair in Sustainable Energy Engineering. She has held academic appointments at the University of Kentucky, Pennsylvania State University, and University of Nottingham. 

Her internationally recognised track record covers energy systems, CCUS, integration of hydrogen technologies and low carbon fuels. Her research portfolio includes a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Award. She has over 600 publications and has received numerous international prizes and awards.

Prof Maroto-Valer holds leading positions in professional societies/editorial boards, including the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET) under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary-General. She also represents the UK at the global intergovernmental clean energy initiative Mission Innovation – Technical Advisory Group.  

Inha University, South Korea

http://nanogreen.inha.ac.kr

Emeritus Professor Sang-Eon Park of INHA Univ., had been the director of the Lab. of Nano-Green Catalysis and Nano Center. He has PhD (1981) from KAIST and experienced in Chon Engrg. Co. for 6 yrs with post-doc at Texas A. & M., worked as a principal investigator in KRICT for 16 years, and 4yrs as an outside director of S-Oil. Now, he is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of CO₂ Utilization and also serves as Honorary Professors of several Universities and the editorial boards of several scientific journals, as an advisory member of several leading international conferences including ICCDU, a member of Korean Academy of Science & Technology and a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry. He published more than 350 scientific articles and 80 patents applied, with 7 industrialized projects. His research on carbon dioxide utilization had focus on uses of CO2 as oxidants coined with Soft Oxidant, Promoter, and Enhancer. Recently, he was awarded the Aresta Award in 2023 during the 20th ICCDU at Bari.

Faculdade de Engenharia Universidade do Porto, Portugal

https://sigarra.up.pt/feup/pt/func_geral.formview?p_codigo=230268

University of Cambridge, UK

http://www-reisner.ch.cam.ac.uk/erwin.html

Erwin Reisner is the Professor of Energy and Sustainability in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, where he also holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies. He is also a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. He is an expert in renewable energy technologies and sustainable chemistry, in particular the sunlight-powered production of sustainable fuels and platform chemicals. His cross-disciplinary research into solar chemistry and circular chemical technologies focuses on the capture and utilisation of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide as well as the valorisation of plastics and biomass waste to produce green fuels and chemicals for a net zero future.

Erwin and his team have developed concepts and approaches for the direct integration of synthetic and biological catalysts with photovoltaic light absorbers to enable efficient and selective solar-driven chemical synthesis. The understanding and assembly of such semiconductor-molecule 'hybrid materials' and 'semi-artificial’ biohybrids has led to the construction of autonomous solar-powered prototype devices for solar fuel production. Their ‘solar fuels devices’ demonstrated artificial photosynthesis by converting carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, formic acid, multi-carbon alcohols or acetic acid, while oxidising water to co-produce oxygen gas. Erwin’s team also established 'solar reforming’ as a practical approach to upcycle lignocellulosic biomass and plastic waste to platform chemicals and fuels. Their concepts and solar-powered prototype devices demonstrated the performance and economic advantages of oxidising solid waste streams instead of oxidising water, making the lab-to-market transition of solar chemistry a realistic long-term prospect. To accelerate the commercialisation of solar reforming, he and his colleagues have protected the underlying core IP and co-founded the start-up company ‘Protonera’. His team has also made contributions to show the potential of heterogeneous semiconductor photocatalysts for green organic synthesis and has reported solar hybrid technologies to demonstrate the benefits of integrated solar chemistry over conventional photovoltaic-electrolyser technologies.

Erwin’s laboratory on solar chemical technologies has been supported by several fellowships and grants such as an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship on bio-inspired solar hydrogen production (2009-2015), the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable SynGas Chemistry (2012-2019), a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant on semi-artificial photosynthesis (2016-2023), an ERC/UKRI Advanced Grant on semi-biological domino catalysis (2023-2028) and a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair for tech-transfer of solar reforming (2024-2034). He has received several awards in recognition of his team's scientific achievements, such as the recently awarded Hughes Medal by the Royal Society (2023) and the Tilden Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry (2024). He has previously acted as the director of the UK Solar Fuels Network, which coordinates the national activities in artificial photosynthesis (2017-2021) and is the principal investigator (academic lead) of the Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas), and co-director of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Integrated Functional Nano (nanoDTC) in Cambridge. Erwin is also a member of the international advisory boards of Angewandte Chemie and Chemical Science. 

Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences

http://hanbx.iccas.ac.cn/

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