Keynote speakers

Keynote speakers

 

We are happy to announce confirmed keynote speakers for EuropaCat 2025:

The keynote speakers

Albin Pintar

Research professor and Head of the programme group »Integrated Approach to Water Pollution Prevention« at the National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, Slovenia

portrait of a manHis research interests include heterogeneous catalysis, environmental catalysis, kinetics and mechanisms of catalytic reactions in multiphase reactors, wastewater treatment, and the production of hydrogen-rich mixtures from renewables and process intensification.

Title of lecture:  Harnessing light and catalysts for a cleaner future: Advances in water purification

 

Eranda Nikolla

Professor at University of Michigan, USA

portrait of a womanHer research interests are within heterogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis, such as low-temperature oxygen electrocatalysis in alkaline and acidic media, high-temperature H2O and CO2 electrolysis and energy storage in alkaline batteries. But also thermal catalysis such as hydrodeoxygenation of biomass-derived raw material and hydrogenolysis of plastic waste are fields she pays attention to.

Title of lecture:  TBA

 

Ning Yan

Professor and director at Centre for Hydrogen Innovations, National University of Singapore, China

Portrait of a manHis research focuses on catalyst design, green energy as CO2 conversion and ammonia decomposition, as well as waste refinery and utilization, and preparation of renewable nitrogen-containing compounds.

Title of lecture:  TBA

 

 

Jacinto Sá

Professor at Uppsala University, Sweden

a man

His research group focuses on the development of heterogeneous photo-electro-catalysis based on plasmonics. Building on advanced ultrafast characterization methods, the group is developing unique systems for applications ranging from artificial photosynthesis to photoredox catalysis.

 Title of lecture: Leveraging plasmonics unique photophysics to make molecules

 

Anna Chrobok

Professor at Silesian University of Technology, Poland

a woman

Her research group focuses on the development of sustainable processes for fine chemicals production; designing of heterogeneous and homogeneous (bio)catalysts; the design, characterization and application of functional ionic liquids for green synthesis.

 Title of lecture: A generic approach to tailoring catalysts for industrially-relevant reactions: From acidic to enzymatic catalysis

 

Tapio Salmi 

Professor at Åbo Akademi, Finland

His research theme concerns the development of wood-derived raw materials to replace oil-based fuels. His research questions focus on the modelling and optimisation of chemical reactions, in particular catalytic reactions.

Title of lecture: The impact of chemical reaction engineering on the catalytic transformation of biomass to valuable chemicals

 

The recipient of EFCATS Applied Catalysis Award 2025 

EFCATS Applied Catalysis Award aims to recognize individuals with excellence in scientific novelty, technical achievements in development and scale-up, interdisciplinary teamwork between scientists and engineers. The recipient will be announced in spring 2025.

Title of lecture: TBA

The keynote speakers 2

Todd Hyster

Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, USA

Portrait photo of a manHis group is broadly focused on developing strategies that enable enzymes to catalyze reactions that are currently unknown in nature. Using the tools of directed evolution, these catalysts can be optimized to solve long-standing reactivity and selectivity challenges in chemical synthesis. A central aim of their work is to establish visible light irradiation as a general strategy for enabling enzymes to catalyze synthetically valuable free radical reactions.

Title of lecture: TBA

 

Thomas Schaub

Designated Senior Principal Scientist and Lab Head of Catalysis Research Laboratory, BASF Germany, and Honorary Professor at University of St. Andrews, Scotland

Portrait of a manHis research interests are within process development using homogeneous catalysis on hydrogenations, aminations, acceptorless dehydrogenations, oligomerisations, carbonylations; use of CO2 as building block; efficient use of renewables as building blocks in organic synthesis; ChemCycling; organometallic synthesis; mechanistic investigations on homogeneous catalyzed reactions, and high pressure chemistry.

Title of lecture: Collaborative Industrial-Academic Research for the use of Homogenous Catalysis in circular processing and the utilization of renewable feedstocks

 

Alessandra Beretta

Professor at Politecnico di Milano, Italy

a woman

Her research deals with the study of catalytic processes in the fields of energy conversion and environmental protection, with focus on kinetics and reactor design. The research topics include the production of H2 and syngas by CPO, SR, cracking of fossil and renewable fuels and H-carriers, the electrification of catalytic processes, the thermochemical conversion of biomass, the Selective Catalytic Reduction of NOX by NH3.

Title of lecture: R&D steps towards H2 production by methane pyrolysis on Fe-Al2O3: From catalyst formulation to kinetic and reactor studies

 

Edd Anders Blekkan

Professor and head of the Catalysis group at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

a man

His research covers many aspects of heterogeneous catalysis and related technologies applied to energy conversion e.g. gas cleaning, natural gas conversion, as well as biomass and CO2 conversion. 

 

Title of lecture: TBA

 

Jakob Kibsgaard

Professor and head of section for Surface Physics and Catalysis at DTU, Denmark

His research focuses on developing and understanding catalysts for transforming sustainable energy into fuels and chemicals. He is using electron microscopy to correlate the atomic structure of a nanoparticle with its catalytic properties and aims at accelerating the development of scalable Power-to-X materials. 

Title of lecture: Designing and investigating catalysts for energy conversion catalysts using mass-selected nanoparticles.

 

The recipient of EFCATS Young Researcher Award 2025

The EFCATS Young Researcher Award recognizes individual contributions in the field of catalysis with emphasis on theoretical or experimental discovery and understanding of new catalysts and catalytic processes. The recipient will be announced in spring 2025.

Title of lecture: TBA