Speakers
Plenary Speakers
（In alphabetical order by last name）
Dr. Guoqing Guan
Hirosaki University
Full Professor
Distinguished Fellow of IACC
Dr Guoqing Guan is a full professor of Hirosaki University, a fellow of the Engineering Academy of Japan and a Distinguished Fellow of International Association for Carbon Capture (IACC). He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Chemical Engineering from Sichuan University, China, and Kyushu University, Japan, in 1990, 1993, 1995 and 2004.
His research interests include electrochemical reduction of CO2, urea electrosynthesis, electro-upgrading of biomass intermediates, seawater electrolysis, coal/biomass/plastics pyrolysis and gasification, biorefinery, heterogeneous catalysts for energy conversion, and sustainable energy system.
He has published over 550 international peer reviewed papers, 65 patents and 30 book chapters with a H-index of 73 (WoS) and 84 (Google Scholar).
He is now serving as Editor-in-Chief of Resources Chemicals and Materials, Associate Editors of Carbon Resources Conversion and MetalMat, editorial board members of Fuel Processing Technology and other 5 international journals.
Prof. Sai Gu
University of Surrey
Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor
(East and South East Asia)
Professor Sai Gu is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (East and South East Asia) working closely with Professor Michael Scott, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International), to maintain, extend and deepen our relationships with university partners in this region, and to pursue opportunities for funding, student mobility, and research and education collaborations.
Prof Gu obtained a PhD in Material Modelling from the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Professor Graham McCartney. He further pursued this material research with Professor Tian Jian Lu as Post-doc at the University of Cambridge. He was a lecturer at Aston University while working closely with Professor Tony Bridgwater in bioenergy research with focus on biomass fast pyrolysis. He continued to expand his bioenergy research at University of Southampton by developing an extensive international network in Asia, Africa and Europe from biomass resources, processing to product upgrading. He was appointed Chair in Clean Energy at Cranfield University in 2011 in partnership with Peterborough City Council to support the growth of high tech sectors. He subsequently established Centre for Bioenergy and Resource Management with large number of PhD and Post-doc researchers. He joined the University of Surrey as the Head of Chemical Engineering in 2015 and engineered the transformation of the department by substantially increasing its size and strengthening its research. He also led the merge of chemistry and chemical engineering as the Head of School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at University of Surrey.
Professor Gu has an international reputation for clean energy and material research. He has a long track-record of coordinating large collaborative projects with international partners and has successfully won tens of million pounds in grants from EPSRC, EU, Innovate UK and industry.
Professor Gu is an advocate of digital technologies for chemical engineering, pioneering the development of Industry 6th Sense technologies. He has established the Centre for Connected Plants of the Future to bring together multi-disciplinary expertise cross the University of Surrey, exploring the development of technology-driven innovation for chemical industry. He has led the EPSRC project "Stepping towards the industrial 6th sense".
Prof. Shengping Wang
Ningxia University
Professor
Shengping Wang is a Changjiang Distinguished Professor and a member of the Expert Committee on CCUS for the 2030 National Major Science and Technology Project for Coal. She earned her B.S. (1994) and M.S. (2000) degrees from Hebei University of Technology, and her Ph.D. (2003) in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University. She joined the faculty of Tianjin University in 2003 and later became a professor in Chemical Engineering at Ningxia University in 2023.
In 2012-2013, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, collaborating with Professor Enrique Iglesia. Her research focuses on surface science and catalysis, including CO2 capture and utilization, as well as the utilization of synthesis gas, with a particular emphasis on the design and structure-performance relationships of catalytic and adsorbent materials.
She has published over 150 papers in leading journals such as JACS, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Energy Environ. Sci., and ACS Catalysis. She holds 42 patents in China, as well as 8 patents in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Prof. Wang has received several prestigious awards, including the First Prize of the Tianjin Natural Science Award and the China Excellent Patent Award.
Prof. Paul A. Webley
Monash University
Professor
Professor Paul A. Webley is a leader in clean energy technology, specializing in carbon capture and carbon dioxide conversion. He has 30 years of experience across academia and industry, and directs the Woodside Monash Energy Partnership and the ARC Hub for CO₂ Reuse and Recycling at Monash University.
His research has been central to establishing adsorption as a key technology for CO₂ capture. With over 300 publications, 10 patents, and extensive mentorship of PhD students, Professor Webley's work contributes to advancing sustainable energy practices both within and beyond academia.
Prof. Aidong Yang
University of Oxford
Professor of Engineering Science
Senior Research Fellow
Aidong Yang is Professor of Engineering Science and Senior Research Fellow of Green Templeton College at University of Oxford. Before moving to Oxford in 2014, Aidong was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at University of Surrey, where he started as a Lecturer in 2007 after holding research positions in several academic organisations in China, the US, Germany and the UK.
He studied Chemical Engineering in Hebei University of Technology and Dalian University of Technology and received a bachelor's degree and a PhD in 1992 and 1997, respectively.
As a systems engineering researcher, Aidong's work spans a broad range of mathematical modelling approaches and sustainability-oriented applications. At Oxford, he leads the Energy and Environmental Systems Engineering group in the Department of Engineering Science, currently active in areas including industrial decarbonisation, atmospheric CO2 removal and engineering biology.
Prof. Mingjun Yang
Dalian University of Technology
Professor and Dean
Mingjun Yang is a Professor and Dean of the School of Energy and Power Engineering at Dalian University of Technology. He is a recipient of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants for Distinguished Young Scholars and Excellent Young Scholars. He also serves as Director of the Engineering Research Center of Low-Carbon Energy and Carbon Capture (Ministry of Education) and Director of the Liaoning Key Laboratory for Natural Gas Hydrate.
He received his B.S. (2005) and Ph.D. (2010) degrees from Dalian University of Technology. From 2015 to 2016, he was a Visiting Scholar at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on natural gas hydrate exploitation, CO₂ capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), and applications of hydrate-based technologies.
He has published over 70 SCI-indexed papers in journals such as Energy & Environmental Science and Applied Energy, and holds more than 90 Chinese invention patents and 13 international patents. Prof. Yang has received several prestigious awards, including the Second Prize of the National Natural Science Award, two First Prizes of the Natural Science Award from the Ministry of Education, and a Special Gold Award at the Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions.
Prof. Jiayin Yuan
Stockholm University
Professor of Materials Chemistry
Jiayin Yuan is Professor of Materials Chemistry at Stockholm University, Sweden. He earned his PhD in polymer chemistry in Germany in 2009 and subsequently led a research team developing functional polymers at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany. After a one-year stay in the United States, he joined Stockholm University as a Wallenberg Academy Fellow in 2018 and has been a full professor since 2019.
He received an European research council (ERC) Starting Grant in 2014 and an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2022. His current research focuses on functional polymers and carbon materials for tackling environmental and energy challenges in sustainable development.
Prof. Eileen Yu
University of Southampton
Chair of Chemical Engineering
Professor Eileen Yu holds a Chair of Chemical Engineering in the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Southampton. After obtaining her PhD from Newcastle University pioneering on the development of direct methanol alkaline fuel cells, she worked as a research fellow at Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Germany before she returned to Newcastle University to take a prestigious EPSRC Research Fellowship (Life Science Interface). This fellowship enabled her to extend her research into the biosciences, from which she has developed an interdisciplinary research profile.
She has a wide range of experience in various fields in electrochemical and bioelectrochemical systems for energy, environmental and biomedical applications. She has attracted more than £20m funding from various funding organisations and led interdisciplinary research group.
Her current research covers understanding fundamentals and engineering applications of electrocatalysis and microbial electrochemical systems with CO2 utilisation, CO2 capture, nitrogen fixation, resource recovery from wastes, bioremediation, environment monitoring with bio-electrochemical systems, and biosensors.
She is the Editor in Chief of Fuel Cells (Wiley), and Associate editor for several journals.