Shifting our dependence from fossil fuels does not only require clean ways to produce energy but also alternative pathway for the sustainable production of chemicals. Electrochemistry can help us in this direction, enabling the formation of value-added product from cheap and abundant feedstock, including waste, via emerging electrochemical reactions.
This symposium invites contributions from cutting-edge and challenging electrocatalytic reactions, aimed at decarbonizing energy, fuels or chemicals productions. The focus will span from catalyst design to mechanistic and theoretical studies, applied to emerging reactions. The reactions covered will include but will not be limited to ammonia synthesis, nitrate reduction, biomass electro-oxidation and C-N coupling.
- Electrochemical partial oxidation of small molecules
- Electrosynthesis
- Electrochemical C-N coupling
- Electrochemical nitrogen reduction
- Electrochemical nitrate reduction
Dr Hui Luo is an independent academic fellow in the School of Mechanical Engineering Sciences at the University of Surrey, UK. She is also a Fellow of the Institute for Sustainability, member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC) and member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (MIMMM).
Dr. Luo obtained her PhD in Queen Mary University of London in 2019, working on carbon materials for solar hydrogen conversion. in Oct 2019 she moved to Imperial College London working as a research associate, developing biomass electrolyser for green hydrogen and bio-chemical co-production. In Sep 2022 she worked as a senior test engineering at Ceres, before taking the Surrey Future Fellowship and join Surrey in May 2023.
Her research interests include developing and up-scaling efficient electrolysis technologies to convert biomass and plastic wastes into green hydrogen and high-value commodity chemicals. Her expertise includes nanomaterials synthesis and characterisation, water electrolysis and fuel cell technologies, in operando Synchrotron X-ray absorption, surface enhanced Raman and FTIR spectroscopy, as well as gas and liquid chromatography.
I'm an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London (ICL). My principal interests and expertise are in the science and engineering of electrochemical energy conversion, CO2 reduction, and separation processes for industrial effluent treatment and material recycling. After obtaining my MSci degree in Physics at ICL in 2007, I moved to the Department of Chemical Engineering to carry out PhD studies in electrochemical wastewater treatment through heavy metal recovery. I subsequently conducted multiple postdoctoral research projects in the same department, including in photoelectrochemical solar fuel production, waste management by electrochemical treatment of waste streams and valorisation of CO2 via conversion into fuels. Academic research projects in my group are aimed at solving industrial problems through both experimental and numerical modelling investigations.
Pablo S. Fernández received his B.Sc (2006) and Ph.D. (2011) in the Research Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physical Chemistry (INIFTA) at the University of La Plata, La Plata, Argentina under the supervision of Profa. Maria E. Martins. During 2012-2014 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the same institution. In 2014 he joined the Electrochemistry Group at the Chemistry Institute of São Carlos, USP, where he worked as a Postdoc with Prof. Germano Tremiliosi-Filho until August of the same year when he was appointed Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Institute of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Between 2010 and 2013 he visited the group of Prof. Giuseppe Câmara (UFMS-MS) where he worked intensively with FTIR in situ. From 07/2015 to 03/2016 he joined the Catalysis and Surface Chemistry Group, at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) working under the supervision of Prof. M.T.M. Koper. He is currently an Associate Professor at Unicamp, head of the Campinas Electrochemistry Group (CampEG) and an active member at the Center for Innovation on New Energies (CINE). He was the Director of the Physical Chemistry Division of SBQ (Brazilian Chemical Society, 2020-2022). Since 2020 is the Brazilian representative of the SIBAE (Ibero-American Society of Electrochemistry). His research focuses on fundamental aspects of electrochemistry and electrocatalysis with an emphasis on the use and development of in situ characterization tools.