Keynote Speaker Ⅰ

Prof. Chenxu Wu

Xiamen University, China

Biography Sketch: Chenxu Wu, born in December 1967, is mainly engaged in the research of Soft condensed matter physics. Prof. Chenxu Wu was the recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2002, doctoral supervisor, and served as Dean of School of Physics and Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of Xiamen University from 2008 to 2015.  He was the Organizing Committee member of China Physical Society (CPS) Fall Meeting 2006-2009, Softmatter Section Organizing Chair of CPS Fall Meeting 2005-2009, Local Organizing Committee Chairman of CPS Fall Meeting 2013, and the 7th and 8th Review Board Member of Physics, Degree Committee of State Council of China. Prof. Chenxu Wu is the editorial board member of Biophysical Review Letters, World Scientific, Frontier of Physics, Springer Verlag, and Editorial board member, Advances of Physics (Chinese).

Speech Title: TBD

Abstract：TBD

Keynote Speaker Ⅱ

Prof. Ajay Kumar Mishra

Durban University of Technology, South Africa

Biography Sketch: Prof Ajay Kumar MishraMSc, MPhil, PhD, CSci, FRSC currently working as Professor at Department of Chemistry, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa. He is actively working as Director: Academy of Nanotechnology and Waste Water Innovations (ANWWI), Johannesburg, South Africa; Professor at KIIT DU, Bhubaneswar, India; Visiting Professor at Robert Gordon University, Scotland, UK; Bashir State University, Ufa, Russia; Vaal University of Technology, Johannesburg, South Africa; and Adjunct Professor at Hebei University of Science and Technology and Jiangsu University, China. After completing his MPhil & PhD in Chemistry from the University of Delhi, India he has joined as postdoctoral fellow at University of the Free State followed by University of Johannesburg, South Africa during year 2006-2009. He started his academic career as Senior Lecturer in 2009 at University of Johannesburg where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011. He also served there as Director of the Centre of Nanomaterials before moving to University of South Africa in 2015 as full Professor. Prof Mishra is also a chair for IEEE Nanotechnology Council, South Africa Chapter since 2016 to date.

Prof Mishra's active research profile named him in the list of the top 2% of the most-cited scientists since 2019 to date. He has more than 400 publications to his excellent academic profile what includes peer revied international journals articles, conference proceeding, book chapters and many others. Prof Mishra has been playing an effective role in many scientific advisory boards including promotion committee, editorial board member, panel member of funding agencies world wide and also the prestigious Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar award reviewer panel board, India. He has edited around 40 books and delivered more than 139 plenary/keynote/invited/guest lectures in various research institutions/universities/conferences/seminars/workshops. He has successfully graduated 19 PhD's, 23 Master's students of which mostly graduated cum laude (more than 75%), and hosted around many international visiting researchers and postdoctoral fellows. Prof Mishra is also reviewers of several international journals besides playing an active role as an external examiner for national and international Masters/PhD students. He has secured number of international grants with considerable national and international recognition, as well as awards including “Fellow member” and “Chartered Scientist” by Royal Society of Chemistry, UK and Chancellor's Prize (Unisa), 2020 for excellent achievement in research.

Speech Title: Nano-engineered Materials for Wastewater Remediations

Abstract: Nano-engineered materials have been used extensively for a variety of applications. Environmental pollution raised bigger concerns on the discharge of textile waste. Nanotechnology is fast growing on research and bringing sustainable solution in the minimization of the waste. The minimization of the risk of risk and health hazards with the development of industry, environmental pollution and energy shortages have raised awareness of a potential global crisis. Nano-engineered materials can be better solution in finding solution of environmental sustainability more specific to the textile waste remediation due to the large surface areas, diverse morphologies, abundant surface states, and easy device modeling. It is a challenge of great importance to identify and design nano-engineered materials that are efficient, stable, and abundant for the remediation of textile waste. The current talk will be focused on the recent advancement and applications of nano-engineered materials for wastewater remediations.

Keynote Speaker Ⅲ

Prof. Mohd Rafie Bin Johan

Nanotechnology and Catalysis Research Center (NANOCAT), Universiti Malaya, Malaysia

Biography Sketch: Professor Dr. Mohd Rafie Bin Johan is an award winning scientist and International Keynote Speaker. He is a true example of how theoretical and fundamental research leads to remarkable progress in the applied, engineering and industrial use of nano-designed advanced material. Professor Rafie graduated with a BSc (Physics) from Universiti Malaya and BEng(Chem) from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He obtained his MPhil in Quantum Optics at Institute for Advanced Studies (UM) in 1997 and PhD in Theoretical Physics in 2005. From 1999 to 2001 he was also Head of Biomedical Engineering Program, Universiti Malaya. He moved to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya where from the year 2005 until 2009, as a senior lecturer and  Coordinator for Materials Engineering Program. In 2010, he was promoted to Associate Professor  and to Professor of Materials Engineering in 2015. He is transferred to Nanotechnology and Catalysis Research Centre (NANOCAT) in 2016 and was appointed as a Director of NANOCAT in 2017. Prof. Rafie is well recognized internationally in the field of Nanotechnology. He has been elected in Evaluation Panels  for national and international grants including Qatar Foundation and expert panel for Yang di Pertuan Agong Scholarship and COMSTECS for Islamic Organization Country for the best chemistry papers for Muslim Scientist. He has been invited as a speaker to numerous talks and conferences and also Guest Editor for Symmetry (ISI), editor for Asean Engineering Journal and Founder/Editor in Chief of Malaysian International Journal of Nanotechnology and Catalysis. In 2010, he was a visiting scientist at the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Cambridge and  a visiting scholar at Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy in 2012. He had 35 PhD completed (27 on-going), 30 Master by Research and 5 Master by Coursework completed (10 on going). He had published more than 350 ISI papers with H index 40 (WoS) & 47 Google scholar with above 8000 citations. He had various research projects (National, International and Industry with a total amount of RM 20 million and several patents. He teached Philosophy, Advanced Materials, Nanotechnology & Quantum Mechanics. He was the recipient of prestigious Top Research Scientist Malaysia (TRSM) 2021 from Academy of Sciences Malaysia and Top in Tech Innovation Award 2021. He was awarded of UM Excellent Award for Best HICOE/UMCOE and elected as Fellow of Royal Society Chemistry FRSC (UK). Recently, he is promoted to Senior Professor (VK6).

Speech Title: Multifunctional Catalyst System for sustainable production of bio-derived fuels and value added products

Abstract: Rapid growing population and urbanization is increasing the world’s energy demand. Contemporarily, global energy supply originates from fossil drive substance, which are renown to release greenhouse gas to our environment. It is evident that greenhouse gases particularly CO2 are agent of global warming and eventually climate change. The exploration of renewable resource such as biomass is important against the fossil counterparts. These growing energy demand can be met by the efficient conversion of biomass. Developing one-pot reaction methodologies is crucial for sustainable production of bio-derived fuels and value-added chemicals, which typically requires a multifunctional catalyst system. The use of effective catalysts is a paradigm change to the worldwide goal of economic sustainability and environmental protection. Hence, this talk describes recent developments involving various catalysts such as metal-catalyst supported rice derived silica with reference to the catalytic conversion of furfural into useful products via tandem hydrogen-esterification, molten salts/ionic liquids for catalytic valorization of glycerine and glycerol pitch via esterification and etherification and novel nitrogen based organo-catalyst for Knoevenagel condensation reaction. The main aim is to provide an overview of the latest work on the use of multi-functional catalysts and its reusability for successful conversion to value added products.  biomass. The talk ends with conclusions and suggestions for future work which will assist researchers in utilizing these catalysts for the safe conversion into valuable chemicals and other products.

Keynote Speaker Ⅳ

Prof. Miguel A. BAÑARES

Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry (ICP), CSIC, Spain

Biography Sketch: Prof. Miguel A. Bañares received his BA and PhD, both in Chemistry, from the University of Salamanca in 1988 and 1992 respectively. Prior to joining the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) as a Scientist in 1995, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Lehigh University in 1992 and at the University of Notre Dame in 1993-1994. He is currently the Research Professor in the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry and the leader of the Catalytic Spectroscopy Laboratory at CSIC. In 2014-2015, he was the Deputy Vice President for Scientific Technical Fields of CSIC.

Prof. Bañares’ research stands on the use of real-time Raman spectroscopy during catalysis combining in situ spectroscopic characterization of catalyst structure with simultaneous activity measurement, so that both structure and performance are measured simultaneously. He coined the term "Operando" to identify this advanced in situ spectroscopy and this term is widely used in literature now.

Prof. Bañares is the Editor-in-Chief of Catalysis Today (since 2021) and the co-editor of the Springer Handbook of Advanced Catalyst Characterization. He is also the editorial board member of Catalysis Letters (since 2006) and Topics in Catalysis (since 2006). He was also the Chairman of the Management Committee of European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST Action) in 2006-2011 and the Vice Chairman of Materials, Physical and Nanosciences COST Action TD1204 in 2012-2016. He was awarded the “Chaire d'excellence” by the École nationale supérieure d'ingénieurs de Caen & Centre de Recherche in 2013, the “Otto Mønsted Visiting Professorship” by Technical University of Denmark in 2014, and the Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Caen Normandy in 2017.