His research focuses on sustainable resources, decarbonisation and circularity, with expertise in carbon capture and utilisation, CO₂ electrolysis and electrocatalysis, direct air capture, and advanced materials. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed journal publications, attracting over 2,600 citations with an h-index of 26, and his research has contributed to three patent applications.

He is an active peer reviewer for leading international journals, including high-impact and flagship publications, and contributes to the assessment of competitive research funding proposals and large-scale research and innovation programmes in the UK and internationally.

His research has been supported by EPSRC, UKCCSRC, Welsh Government and industrial partners, including commercially funded work on CO₂ conversion, and he has held leadership responsibilities within major multi-million-pound research programmes in carbon capture, utilisation and industrial decarbonisation. Before his academic career in the UK, he gained industrial R&D experience across multiple companies, including Basell Polyolefins, before holding postdoctoral research positions at the University of Houston and Rice University in the United States. His experience spans industrial R&D, fundamental and applied research, technology development, academic leadership, transnational education and policy engagement.

Professor Chao'en Li currently serves as the Senior Science Leader of the Institute of New Materials and Industrial Technology at Wenzhou University, China. He is also a Distinguished Professor at Xiangtan University and the Associate Chief Engineer at Wenzhou COCH Energy Co., Ltd., China. In addition, he is an accredited PhD supervisor at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.

Prior to these roles, Professor Li worked as a Senior Scientist, Custodian of the Hydrogen Energy Laboratory, and Techno-Economic Expert at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). He has long been engaged in research on hydrogen and renewable energy, as well as CO₂ capture, conversion, and storage (CCUS) technologies. He also served as a Senior Engineer and Group Leader for national key research projects at the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP), SINOPEC. Professor Li has extensive industrialization experience and a profound research background in energy processing and carbon materials, and he has made unique achievements and contributions in the application of low-temperature plasma technology in the fields of hydrogen energy and green fuels.

Dr Diwakar Shende is an eminent Chemical Engineer, researcher, innovator, and academician whose pioneering contributions have significantly advanced sustainable chemical engineering, process intensification, clean energy technologies, and industrial waste utilization. As Professor at Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology Nagpur, India, he has established internationally recognized research programs in reactive separation, hydrogen generation, fly ash cenosphere technology, biomass conversion, and green process engineering.

Prof. Shende has successfully led numerous research and consultancy projects supported by premier organizations including CSIR, SERB-DST, DRDO, Ministry of Mines, UGC-DAE Consortium, Tata Steel, and several industries. His research has resulted in innovative technologies for value addition to industrial waste, development of sustainable materials, energy-efficient separation processes, hydrogen production, and environmentally benign manufacturing systems.

His outstanding research accomplishments include more than 100 scientific publications, several book chapters published by leading international publishers, and multiple granted Indian and international patents with industrial relevance. He has successfully mentored doctoral and postgraduate scholars who now contribute to academia and industry.

Apart from research excellence, Prof. Shende has rendered exemplary academic and administrative services through leadership roles at VNIT and professional bodies. His work has been recognized through prestigious honours including the Mayor Innovation Award and the ANRF International Travel Support Award. He successfully organized 22 International and national Conferences/Workshops and numerous Guest Lectures and professional meetings in VNIT Nagpur. He visited 04 foreign countries including Thailand, France, Germany and USA (twice) for presenting his research work and delivering the technical talk/chairing the technical sessions and various expert lectures/talks in India. He successfully coordinated many events of Vigyan Bharti (VIBHA Vidarbha) in VNIT Nagpur and other places and attending numerous activities VIBHA Vidarbha.  

Professor Haresh Manyar is Director of Internationalisation and Reader in Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. His research focuses on decabonisation, sustainable energy and green chemical processes by using the design and development of new catalysts and integrated chemical processes in batch and continuous flow reactors. His ongoing research projects include (i) direct capture and conversion of CO₂ to methanol, and C₂-C₄ hydrocarbons; (ii) lotus leaf technology for photoreduction of CO₂ to methanol and formic acid; (iii) volatile fatty acids technology for sustainable aviation fuels; (iv) valorisation of glycerol to glycerol carbonate, glycerol esters; and (v) biofuel additives such as alkyl levulinates, gamma-valerolactone, and diethyl carbonate. He has received several awards including the 2021 Innovation Award by SHV Energy, 2019 American Chemical Society’s I&ECR Excellence in review award, and 2016 Queen's Teaching Award for excellence in Teaching. He has received over £3 million in research grants from Royal Society, EPSRC, Leverhulme trust, Invest NI, STFC and chemical industry. He has several industrial collaborations including Almac Sciences, SHV Energy, Shell, Coryton advanced fuels, Johnson Matthey, Chevron, and Oleon. His research output includes over 160 papers/book chapters, patents/invention disclosures and conference proceedings with an h-index 29 (google scholar). He is the Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), Fellow of Indian Chemical Society (FICS), and Fellow of Higher Education Academy, UK (FHEA). He is on the advisory board of RSC journal Engineering Chemistry & Research. He is Associate Editor of the Journal Frontiers in Chemical Engineering. He is Secretary of SURCAT, RSC’s special interest group on Surface reactivity and Catalysis, and represents UK on the International Association of Catalysis Societies. He is a member of the UK Catalysis hub steering group, QUB Sustainable energy PRP, and research themes on Sustainability and Healthcare. He is also appointed to the Leadership forum of the IChemE Energy Centre Board. He has delivered numerous invited keynote and plenary talks worldwide.

Professor Yao-Tung Lin is a globally recognized expert in environmental engineering, with over three decades of academic and professional experience spanning carbon sequestration, high-value material innovation from agricultural and fishery waste, and advanced synchrotron-based characterization. As a principal investigator and lead scientist, Professor Lin has pioneered novel methods to transform waste into multifunctional materials with antimicrobial, antioxidant, and environmental applications. His research integrates nanotechnology, photocatalysis, and AI-driven material sensing, with special emphasis on chromatic pH-responsive indicators for wound diagnostics and food freshness. In his national leadership role, Professor Lin serves as Director of the Taiwan National Science and Technology Office for Net-Zero Emission under the Executive Yuan (Taiwan’s Cabinet).  He is responsible for developing national strategies, formulating R&D budgets, and steering technological innovation to meet Taiwan’s 2050 Net-Zero goals. He is also renowned for pioneering work using synchrotron X-ray imaging to visualize the 3D inactivation process of bacteria and intracellular stress responses under environmental stimuli. Professor Lin’s integrative leadership connects science, policy, and sustainability toward a circular, carbon-neutral future.

Peng-Cheng Ma graduated with a BSc in Chemistry and an MSc in Polymer Chemistry and Physics from Lanzhou University, China. He obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. From 2010 to 2012, he worked at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden in Germany. Professor Ma joined the Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry- Chinese Academy of Sciences (XTIPC-CAS) in 2012. He is a professor of XTIPC-CAS now and holds a concurrent professorship at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has directed the Laboratory of Environmental Science and Technology at XTIPC-CAS since 2018.

The research of Professor Ma is concentrated on the materials for energy harvesting and utilization, and separation science and technology. He authored 2 monographs, published more than 120 papers with a total citation of 13500 (Google Scholar), and has been ranked as one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University since 2020. His other achievements include the Humboldt Research Fellowship, Awardee of the National High-level Talent Program in China, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, UK), Excellent Young Scientist by the Chinese Society of Composite Materials, Overseas Chinese Returnees Contribution Award (First Class), Outstanding Achievement Award from the International Congress on Separation and Purification Technology and IACC, and so on.

Besides fundamental research, Professor Ma is enthusiastic in transferring knowledge to technology for various applications. He holds 25 Chinese patents, and 8 of them have been transferred/licensed to the industry. As an inventor of the Aggregation-Induced Separation (AIS) Technique, he pioneered research on this concept/methodology for separating various oil-water mixtures produced in the energy/petroleum industries. He is a co-founder and chief scientist of CAS-Realnm, a national hi-tech company working on separation science and technology by taking carbon emission reduction as the cooperate mission.

Professor Ramesh L. Gardas is a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, where he has been engaged in teaching and research since 2010. With over 25 years of research and 15 years of teaching experience, he specializes in chemical thermodynamics, phase equilibria, and the development of non-conventional, environmentally benign solvents such as ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents.

Prof. Gardas has coauthored over 250 peer-reviewed publications, four patents, and twelve book chapters, received more than 10,300 citations (h-index: 53). His work has contributed over 18,500 thermodynamic data points to the NIST Standard Reference Database. He is internationally recognized for the "Gardas and Coutinho" model, used extensively for density prediction of ionic liquids.

In alignment with IACC’s mission, Prof. Gardas’s recent research focuses on next-generation solvents for CO₂ capture, particularly protic and guanidinium-based ionic liquids that are tunable, thermally stable, and low in volatility. His group has developed innovative materials and encapsulation techniques to improve CO₂ absorption capacity, kinetics, and recyclability - paving the way for scalable, process-ready solutions.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), Associate Editor of the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data (ACS), and recipient of numerous awards, Prof. Gardas continues to mentor young researchers and contribute significantly to global carbon capture research and public awareness efforts.

Since 2000, Dr. Yu has been dedicated to the development and demonstration of advanced technologies for the capture and utilization of greenhouse gases. He is internationally recognised as a leading authority in carbon capture and utilisation (CCU), with a distinguished record of scientific excellence, innovation, and real-world impact.

Dr. Yu led a collaborative team in developing an advanced aqueous ammonia-based carbon capture technology, which was successfully demonstrated at a coal-fired power plant in Australia. Building on his CCU expertise and strong industrial connections, Dr. Yu led a team of leading experts from six organisations—Adbri, the Cement Industry Federation, Calix, UNO, the University of Adelaide, and CSIRO—to develop the Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage Technology Roadmap for the Production of Low Emissions Cement and Lime in Australia.

Applying multidisciplinary expertise and creative thinking, Dr. Yu conceived novel concepts, developed new capabilities, and established and led collaborative efforts that underpin the development of two innovative technologies: Integrated Capture and Electrolysis and Integrated Absorption and Mineralisation.

Dr. Yu has secured over AUD $20 million in funding from various sources, including the Australian Government, national and international industry partners, and the Australian Research Council. He has published over 150 papers—with more than 7,000 citations according to Google Scholar—and authored more than 20 industrial and commercial reports.

Professor Stefano Cimino has been Research Director of the National Research Council in Italy (CNR) since 2021 working at the institute for Science and Technology for Sustainable Energy and Mobility (STEMS, Napoli, Italy). He graduated cum laude in Chemical Engineering in 1997 at the University of Napoli Federico II where he earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2001. Since 2001 he has joined the CNR initially working as a researcher at the Institute for Research on Combustion in Napoli in the field of heterogeneous catalytic processes for environmental protection and energy production. In 2006 he was visiting researcher at KTH Stockholm (Sweden). In 2017 he qualified as Full Professor in Chemical Engineering. From 2016 to 2021 he was a member of the Advisory Board Italian Section of the Combustion Institute. He is Member of the Editorial Board of the journals: Catalysts (2018-) and Carbon Capture Science & Technology (2023-)

Throughout his career, he has worked on several research areas including:

·         CO2 capture and Utilization & Power to Gas (Methanation)

·         Catalytic chemical looping (combustion, partial oxidation, integrated CO2 capture-conversion)

·         Catalytic abatement of gaseous pollutants (DeNOx, DOC, TWC, LNT, Hg, VOC, H2S)

·         Catalytic combustion or partial oxidation of light hydrocarbons

·         H2 production & purification

·         Olefins production by oxidative dehydrogenation at short contact time

·         Poisoning, deactivation and regeneration of heterogeneous catalysts

·         Preparation and characterization of heterogeneous catalysts

·         Structured and multifunctional catalytic reactors

He has authored 94 publications in ISI-classified journals and he has filed 7 international patents licensed to industrial partners. In 2018 he edited the volume entitled “Catalyst Deactivation, Poisoning and Regeneration”, published by MDPI.

Dr. Rezaei is Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering Department at University of Miami (UM). Prior to joining UM, she held Linda and Bipin Doshi Endowed Professor of Chemical Engineering at Missouri S&T. She obtained her PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Monash University in Australia and LTU in Sweden in 2011. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech. Her research focus broadly lies at the interface of chemical, materials science and environmental engineering, and the overall goal of her research group is development of advanced materials and processes for separation, purification, and storage applications. She is the author of over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and has received several awards including 2024 ACS ENFL Emerging Researcher, 2021 ACS Women Chemists Committee (WCC) Rising Star Award; 2020 UM System president’s Award for Career Excellence-Early Career; 2018 Energy & Fuels Award for Excellence in Publication; as well as 2021 and 2018 Missouri S&T Faculty Research Award. She is the Associate Editor of ACS Energy & Fuels journal and editorial member of Journal of CO₂ Utilization and Frontiers in Energy Research. 

Dr. Bishnupada Mandal is currently a full Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience in IIT Guwahati. He was Visiting Research Professor in The Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at The Ohio State Engineering, Columbus, Ohio, USA during May-July 2017. He had been a recipient of the prestigious BOYSCAST fellow award of Department of Science and Technology (DST) Govt. of India and spent one year (2006-2007) as a visiting scientist at The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. His research interest includes CO₂ capture by absorption, adsorption, and membrane based processes from flue gas, natural gas and syngas; wastewater treatment using bio-sorption and enzymatic processes; Interfacial reactions; and modeling and simulation of separation processes, organic solvent nanofiltration membrane & fuel cell. He has guided 19 PhD and several MTech as well as BTech students. Currently he is involved in guidance of 8 PhD students. He has published two monographs (Lap-Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, 2010), five book chapters, 110 research papers in reputed international journals and more than 150 papers in referred conference proceedings. He has over 4900 citations and h-index is 36 (Google Scholar). He has served as a Member (Senate Nominee) of the Board of Governor (BOG), IIT Guwahati. He has served as the Editorial Board Member of Heliyon (Elsevier), & American Journal of Modern Chemical Engineering (Columbia International Publishing) and Guest Editor for Indian Chemical Engineer. He has served as reviewer of more than 50 ACS, Elsevier, Wiley, Springer and RSC journals. He was the Organizing Secretary of 68^th Annual Session of Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (CHEMCON 2015). He has served as Chairman and Honorary Regional Secretary, Guwahati Regional Centre (GRC) of IIChE. He has server as elected Executive Council Member of IIChE for the years 2016-2019 and reelected for the years 2022-2024. He is involved in several research/consultancy projects. He has served Oil India Limited (OIL), Duliajan, National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPCL), New Delhi, GAIL (India) Limited and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Bangalore as a consultant.  

Dr. Luciana Porto de Souza Vandenberghe is Full Professor of the Department of Bioprocess Engineering and Biotechnology, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil. Dr Vandenberghe obtained her PhD degree in Génie de Procédés Industriels - Biotechnologie from Université de Technologie de Compiègne (2000), France. Her areas of interest include Bioprocess Engineering & Biotechnology and Industrial Microbiology, with focus on valorization of solid and liquid agro-industrial products through submerged and solid-state fermentation for biomolecules production including biofuels, industrial enzymes, organic acids, bioplastics and plant growth hormones. She has published 142 papers, 3 books, 63 book chapters and 25 patents. She is Associate Editor of Bioresource Technology (Elsevier) and Carbon Capture Science and Technology and Editorial Board Member of Biotechnology Research and Innovation Journal (Brazilian Biotechnology Association). She is in the top 2% of Brazilian researchers according to AD Scientific Index in 2022.

Dr Chew Tin Lee received her PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, U.K in 2004. She currently serves as the Professor in the School of Chemical & Energy Engineering, University of Technology Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia. She is passionate about promoting sustainable organic waste management through the 3R campaign, biomass to energy, and composting. She published over 170 international scientific papers. Lee serves various editorial roles, including in the Journal of Cleaner Production(2018-2022) , Energy, and Chemical Engineering Transactions. She was the Director of Global Education at UTM (2008-2016). She is the Co-chair/Director of the International Conference on Low Carbon in Asia (www.iclcaconf.com); she runs international summer programs to promote sustainability. She was the Visiting Scholar at the University of Politechnica Madrid (2015) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2019). She is a chartered engineer of IChemE U.K. and a member of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia.

E-mail: ctlee@utm.my

Research areas: Waste management, Circular Economy, Greenhouse gases inventory,