Presenters
Guest Workshop Speakers - 22 and 23 October 2021
Dr Yikai Xu
is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. He obtained his BSc degree in Applied Chemistry at East China University of Science and Technology and completed his PhD research at QUB. Dr Xu is the recipient of the 2019 Kathleen Lonsdale Royal Irish Academy Prize for the most outstanding PhD research in chemical science in Ireland. He is recognized as an “emerging investigator” by the Royal Society of Chemistry and serves as a community advisor for Nanoscale Horizons. His research interests are in the preparation and applications of plasmonic nanomaterials for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and catalysis.
Professor Yongliang Li
is a Chair of Thermal Energy Engineering in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on thermal energy conversion, storage, and thermal management. He is leading several grant challenge projects on heating/cooling decarbonisation funded by UKRI and is also the coordinator of a EC funded RISE project to developing low-carbon cooling technology in collaboration with 17 international partners.
Dr. Yeshui Zhang
is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow at University College London, UK, since January 2018 and has been appointed as a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at University of Aberdeen, UK in Dec 2021. She has completed her BSc. from University of Birmingham in 2012 and MSc. (Engineering) from The University of Sheffield in 2013. She finished her PhD in September 2017 at University of Leeds. Her research interests cover broad area of chemical engineering, including energy storage materials, lithium-ion battery manufacturing, pyrolysis-catalysis of waste, high temperature quartz crystal microbalance, carbon nanotubes synthesis and circular economy of plastics.
Dr. Guanjie He
is an Associate Professor in Materials Chemistry, University of Lincoln. Dr. He’s research focused on materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion applications, especially electrode materials in aqueous electrolyte systems. Dr. He has published 98 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 5 invited book chapters, with total citation of over 2900, and an h-index of 29.
Xiaolei Fan
is a Reader (of Chemical Engineering) at The University of Manchester. His research broadly encompasses the heterogeneous catalysis, porous materials, catalytic reaction engineering, process intensification and structured catalysts/reactors. He has published 100+ peer reviewed articles with a H-index of 28. His research was recognised internationally with awards such as the Lee Hsun Young Scientist Lecture award on Materials Sciences by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2018), RSC Emerging Investigators (2019) and ACS I&EC Research 2020 Influential Researchers (2020).
D. Jiawei Wang
is a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at Aston University and associated with Aston’s Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute (EBRI). He has published more than 50 journal papers with an h-index of 19. His research interests and expertise include heterogeneous catalysis for environmental and sustainable energy applications, biomass thermal conversion, and plastic-to-fuel conversion. He has won over £1 million fund from Innovate UK, British Council, Royal Society, EU Horizon 2020 and industry. He is the chair of the Chinese UK group in the Society of Chemical Industry.
Dr. Guozhao Ji
is an associate professor in Environmental Engineering at the School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, China. His research interests include solid waste treatment via thermochemical conversions, kinetics of thermochemical conversions, carbon capture and gas-solid multiphase flow simulation. He has published 70+ papers in energy and environment related journals.
Dr. Cui Quan
is an Associate Professor at the School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. Her current research interests include solid waste thermochemical conversion and resource utilization, oil upgrading, carbon materials from biomass/coal and their application. She has published over 50 papers. She is a recipient of the award of the Royal Society K.C. Wong International Fellowship in 2020.
Dr. Kai Yan
is a full professor at Sun Yat-sen University at Guangzhou and worked as Ten Thousand Plan Young Talent of China. His group mainly concentrates on high value-utilization of biomass. In 2016, he obtained Hundred Talent Plan from Sun Yat-sen University and joined the university in 2017. So far, his group has filed over 15 Patents and published over 85 papers in Angewandte Chem., Applied Catalysis B., ACS Catal., Dr. Yan has been the recipient of Hundred Talent Award, Science and Technology Award for Ecological Environment, IAAM Medal Award, National Ten Thousand Talent Award from Central Organization Department of China.
Prof. Xin Tu
is Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at the University of Liverpool. His research mainly focuses on plasma catalysis for environmental clean-up and the synthesis of fuels and chemicals from carbon and nitrogen sources. He has published over 140 papers in leading international journals (H-index 50 and Citation >7000).
Dr Bing Guo
is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Centre for Environmental Health and Engineering (CEHE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Surrey. Her research interests include microbial ecology, syntrophic relationships and electron transfer mechanisms, the fate of emerging biological contaminants and gene transfer mechanisms in wastewater treatment processes. She has published over 40 papers on wastewater biotechnologies. She is a member of early career editorial boards of Chemical Engineering Journal Advances, Water Environment Research.
Dr. Mi Yan
is associate prof. in Zhejiang University of Technology, China. He is involved in the research of waste to clean energy since 2007 as a graduate student. Now he focuses on the syngas production from high moisture waste (sludge and biomass) via supercritical water gasification. In the last 4 years, he published over 30 SCI papers. Meanwhile, he is active in international activities and collaboration.
Dr Xiaolei Zhang
is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Strathclyde. Her research focus is on production of biofuels and bio-chemicals using multi-scale investigations especially at an atomic/molecular level. She has published 46 peer-reviewed journal papers with an H-index of 25. She has successfully completed research projects from EPSRC and Leverhulme Trust. She is currently editorial board member for international journals such as Biomass and Bioenergy.
Dr. Changlei Qin
is an associate professor at the School of Energy and Power Engineering, Chongqing University, China. His research interest is CO2 adsorption/conversion and catalytic conversion of biomass/methane for H2 production. Dr. Qin hosted 2 funds from National Natural Science Foundation of China and over 10 other research funds. He has published more than 60 journal papers, with a H-index of 23.
Dr. Xiaoxia Ou
is a research associate in Chemical Engineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, the University of Manchester. Her research interests include porous materials, structured catalysts and heterogeneous catalysis for environmental and energy applications.
Dr Hui Jin
is a Professor in State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. His research interest is related to thermal chemical conversion of coal and plastic wastes. He has published over 160 papers with a H-index of 35. Dr Jin is also the editorial board member of Carbon Resources Conversion, Carbon Capture Science & Technology.
Dr Lina Liu
is an associate professor in Environmental Engineering at the College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, China. She obtained her PhD degree in Beihang University, China and finished her postdoc training in Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore. Her research interest is related to plasma-catalytic biomass tar reforming and CO2 utilization. She has published over 30 papers with a H-index of 16.
Dr Hui Zhou
is an assistant professor in Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University. His research interest is related to bioenergy, heterogeneous catalysis, and carbon capture and utilisation. He has published over 50 papers with a H-index of 22 in Nature Catalysis, Nature Communication, Energy and Environmental Science etc. Dr. Zhou is the Editorial Board member of Carbon Capture Science & Technology and Early Career Board member of Green Energy & Environment.
Dr Xuqing LIU
is an Independent Research Fellow in Textile Bioengineering and Science at the University of Manchester. His group utilizes the basic principles in chemistry, material sciences, textiles and fashion, to enable novel applications and development of flexible, stretchable electronics, energy devices and functional fashion. Dr Liu is the Chairman of the Chinese Textile and Apparel Society(CTAS－UK), and a committee of the Society of Chemical Industry, Chinese-UK group. He is the Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is serving on the Editorial Boards of Advanced Fiber Materials, SmartMat, Energy & Environmental Materials. More than 80 research papers have been published in high-quality journals, such as Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Nano Letters, Small, and ACS Nano.
Dr. Jinbo Ouyang
is an associate professor in the School of Chemistry, Biology and Materials Science, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, China. He is mainly engaged in the research of chemical separation, including industrial crystallization and adsorption removal of organic micropollutants from wastewater through biochar and its composites. He has published over 50 papers in the separation related journals such as IECR and SPT.
Dr Zhen Yang
is an Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering at the School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, China. His research interest is related to water pollution control (flocculation, adsorption, membrane filtration, etc.) and solid waste treatment technologies. He has published over 60 papers with an H-index of 28. Dr Yang is also the office member of UK-China Association of Resources and Environment. He is the PI of NSFC-EC “Sino-Euro talent” Project, Excellent Youth Fund of Natual Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, etc.
Prof Haiping Yang
is focused on Biomass pyrolysis/gasification for H2 enriched gas fuel, liquid fuel and carbon contained materials and chemicals. So far she has published over 100 SCI papers, and 8 were cited in ESI, and the highest SCI cite for 1 paper is over 3200. Now she owns Newton Advanced Fellowships (2018) and the Most Cited Chinese Researchers (Elsevier, 2014-2019). She gained the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars program in 2016 and Distinguished Young Scholars program in 2021 (China). She is an associated editor of Fuel Processing Technology, and member of the editor board of Energy Conversion and Management，Fuel, Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis and Journal of the Energy Institute.
Dr. Shikun Cheng
is an associate Professor in Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at the School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. His research interest is related to sustainable sanitation. He has published over 50 papers and drafted 4 national/provincial standards. Dr. Cheng is also management committee member of IWA Sanitation and Water Management in Developing Countries Specialist Group.
Dr. Jianqiang Chen
is an associate professor of College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, China. His research interests focus on the utilization of agricultural and forestry wastes for environmental and energy applications. He has published over 40 research papers as first or corresponding author in this field.
Dr. Ningbo Gao
is an associate professor in environmental engineering at the School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong Univeristy, China. He has published over 120 papers with a H-index of 30 and 3000 citations, he holds more than 30 patents. His research interest is related to sewage sludge drying, biomass thermochemical conversion and catalytic hydrogen production.
Dr. Le Han
is a Professor in Environmental Science and Engineering at the School of Environment and Ecology, Chongqing University, China. His research interest is related to membrane technology in wastewater treatment and resource recovery. He has published over 40 papers in international top journals including Environmental Science and Technology, Journal of Membrane Science, etc. Dr. Han is also committee member of IWA Membrane Technology Specialist Group China Working Group, youth editor of Chinese Chemical Letters and guest editor of Membranes.
Dr Lu Ding
is an Associate Professor in Institute of Clean Coal Technology, East China University of Science and Technology, China. His research interest is related to biomass/coal gasification and solid waste treatment by using hydrothermal technology for producing fuel, activated carbon, or fertilizer. He has coauthored over 80 scientific papers, among which there are 5 ESI highly cited papers, 1 ESI hot paper, and 1 research frontier paper. Dr. Ding severs as a Guest Editor/Editor Board Member in several international scientific journals including Applied Energy, Energy, International Journal of Coal Science and Technology, etc.
Dr Chunfei Wu
is a Reader in Chemical Engineering at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast, UK. His research interest is related to thermal chemical conversion of biomass and plastic wastes and carbon capture and utilisation. He has published over 160 papers with a H-index of 50. Dr Wu is also the Editor-in-Chief of Carbon Capture Science & Technology, an IChemE journal published by Elsevier.
Dr Nathan Skillen
is currently the UKRI Supergen Bioenergy Hub Research Fellow working at Queens University Belfast. He received his BSc (Hons) in Molecular Biology with Biosciences from Robert Gordon University before completing his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the same institute and in collaboration with the University of St. Andrews and California Institute of Technology. His post-doctoral work has focused on photocatalytic technology development for a range of applications centred around environmental remediation and energy production. He has published several research articles and book chapters and currently sits on the international editorial board of Biomass & Bioenergy (Elsevier). More important than all of that, however, he was part of a team of 10 researchers from across the UK that created the first graphic novel on Bioenergy.