A special welcome from our UK representative to introduce everyone for the day, and get things kicked off.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Susana García received her MEng in Chemical Engineering from the University of Oviedo (Spain) in 2004, and then her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nottingham (UK) in 2010. Her PhD research focus was on injection of CO2-SO2 mixtures in geological formations for CO2 storage; she designed and assembled the experimental rig to conduct that work and also acquired computational skills to theoretically model that work. These computational skills were developed by collaborations and stays at international and recognized research centres: the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Oregon. The quality of her PhD work was reflected by the awards she received, including the 1st year best PhD report, a Business- Engineering and Science and Travel Scholarship (BESTS) to do an internship at USGS and a Graduate School travel bursary. Moreover, she was selected to attend the US Research experience in carbon sequestration summer school in 2008, being one of the only three non-US students sponsored to attend this workshop organized by the US Department of Energy. She also received the E.ON Prize for outstanding students with innovative ideas and research into sustainable energy as well as the Peer Review Prize in the same E.ON Energy Programme and Competition.

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Upon completion of her PhD, she was involved in a collaborative academic-industrial research project for six months, which aimed at investigating and developing innovative CO2 compression system technologies for commercial utility scale CCS, improving on weaknesses in current CO2 compression approaches. After that, she moved to the Spanish National Coal Research Institute (INCAR-CSIC), located in Oviedo (Spain), as a Post-doctoral Research Member. Her research work there was mainly focused on CO2 capture by solid sorbents.

Speaker Bio:

Professor Chunfei Wu is a Professor in Low Carbon Technologies at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast (UK). His research interests include CO2 capture, CO2 utilisation, biomass gasification and thermal chemical conversion of waste plastics, specifically focusing on integrated CO2 capture and utilisation (ICCU). He is the PI and Co-I of a few UK and EU projects, including about six EU staff exchange projects in relation to biomass gasification and carbon capture and utilisation, biofuel production and waste plastic recycling. He is the Co-I (PI at QUB) in EPSRC and BBSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Negative Emission Technologies for Net Zero (NET2ZERO) (£8.2M). He has published ~250 peer-reviewed journal papers with >16000 citations (H index of 72, Google Scholar) in the areas of catalytic thermo-chemical conversion of wastes. He is a Managing Editor of Biomass and Bioenergy and the founding Editor-in-Chief of Carbon Capture Science & Technology (IF-10.4), a Gold Open Access journal published by Elsevier. Professor Wu also developed the International Association for Carbon Capture (www.iaccr.org), a registered charity in Northern Ireland, which organises conferences and training workshops, and provides awards and free memberships for the promotion of carbon capture development.

Speaker Bio:

Maja Ruecker investigates flow in porous media, from molecular interactions to pore-scale fluid dynamics in context of various energy technologies. She received a PhD in a joint project of the Rock & Fluid Physics team at Shell Global Solutions International B.V. and Imperial College London and hold a BSc and MSc degree in Geoscience from the Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz. After graduation she worked as Research Associate in the Chemical Engineering Department at Imperial College London. Supported by the Interpore Porelab award for young researchers 2020, she visited the Porelab Institute at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University of Oslo.

November 2020, she joined the Energy Technology group in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Eindhoven University of Technology as an Assistant Professor. She also holds a visiting position at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. Her research is supported by various grants including the Veni-NWO talent scheme, NWO-DeepNL and the Irene-Curie Fellowship.

Speaker Bio:
Prof. Daryl Williams Prof. Daryl R. Williams graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Physical Chemistry from University of Melbourne, Australia and a M.Sc. in Polymer Science from Lehigh University, USA before coming to Imperial College London complete his PhD. He is founder and Managing Director of Surface Measurement Systems and the Professor of Particle Science in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College.

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Prof. Williams has published over 100 papers in refereed journals and been granted 5 international patents. His research interests include the surface and bulk characterisation of complex organic solids, including especially biopharmaceuticals, foods, pharmaceuticals and polymers as well as their manufacture using spray drying, crystallisation, freeze drying, milling and granulation.

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He has invented one and has led the commercialisation of two standard techniques for materials characterisation, the Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS) and the Inverse Gas Chromatography (iGC) methods via Surface Measurement Systems. His work has been recognised by Imperial College with the President’s Medal in 2017, the EEF’s Future Manufacturing Award in Innovation for 2018 and the Institution of Chemical Engineers’ Geldart Medal in 2018/19 for his “major contribution to particle technology”. In 2023, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers, one of the highest honors awards for Engineers in the UK.

Speaker Bio:

Tianheng Qin is a PhD student at School of Enginnering, University of Aberdeen, specialising in catalytic pyrolysis and hydrogen production from plastic waste. His research focuses on catalyst development and process optimisation for sustainable energy conversion.

Dr Paul IACOMI is a Research Manager and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at Surface Measurement Systems (SMS). He holds an EU-funded MSCA PhD in material science from Aix-Marseille University, France. His career has been focused on the advanced characterisation of challenging novel porous materials, like defect-engineered or flexible metal organic frameworks (MOFs), alongside their integration for high-performance applications such as carbon capture, paraffin separation and sensors for satellites. At SMS, his team is leading the development of next generation of sorption methodologies, bringing together a wide range of expertise in sorption techniques and porous material/surface characterisation - including gravimetric and chromatographic (breakthrough) instruments. His research output comprises over 25 peer reviewed publications, 1 patent and 1 book chapter.