Keynote Speakers
Max Lu Aldo Steinfeld Toshinori Kojima Raphael Semiat Xungai Wang
Professor Max Lu
Keynote topic: Nanotechnologies in energy and environmental applications
Professor Max Lu was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) of the University of Queensland in June 2009. Previous to this he was Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) from April 2009, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research Linkages) from October 2008, a position that was held in a 50 percent capacity while retaining his role as Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials – a role he has held since 2003.
After completing his PhD, Professor Lu spent three years in Singapore as Lecturer at Nanyang Technological University. Upon his return to UQ in 1994, he has held the positions of Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, Professor and Chair of Nanotechnology in Chemical Engineering. In 2003, he was awarded his first ARC Federation Fellowship, which was followed immediately by a second awarded in 2008.
Professor Lu’s research expertise is in nanoparticles and nanoporous materials for clean energy and environmental technologies. With over 390 publications in high impact journals including Nature, JACS, Angew Chem, Adv Materials, he is also co-inventor of 18 international patents. Professor Lu is a ISI highly-cited researcher in materials science with over 6900 citations (with a h-index of 44). He has received numerous prestigious awards nationally and internationally including the Orica Award, RK Murphy Medal, Le Fevre Prize, ExxonMobil Award, IUMRS Young Scientist Award, Top 100 Most Influential Engineers in Australia (2004) and Top 50 Most Inspiring Chinese in the World (2006). He is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) and Fellow of The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE).
Professor Lu formerly served as the DEST Research Quality Framework Chair of Engineering and Technology Panel 2007, on Expert Advisory Groups of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (2004, 2005), and as an ARC College of Experts Panel member (2002-2004). He has been Chair of the PMSEIC Thematic Cluster on Science as an Engine for Innovation, is the immediate past Chairman of the IChemE Australia Board, and former Director of the Board of ATSE. His other committee memberships include the Advisory Board of CSIRO Flagship for Future Manufacturing, Uniseed Management Board of Directors, Management Board of the ARC Nanotechnology Network, and the Queensland China Council.
Professor Lu is also the founder of the APCSEET conference series.
Professor Aldo Steinfeld
Keynote topic: Chemical fuels from water, CO2, and solar energy
Aldo Steinfeld is Professor at the Dept. of Mechanical and Process Engineering of ETH Zurich, and Head of the Solar Technology Laboratory of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1989.
Prior to joining ETH and PSI, he was Research Fellow at the Energy Research Center of the Weizmann Institute of Science. His research program is aimed at the advancement of the thermal, thermochemical, and electrochemical engineering sciences applied to the field of renewable energy technology. The research focus is in radiation heat transfer and high-temperature chemical reactor engineering, with applications in concentrated solar power and solar fuels production (e.g. hydrogen), fossil fuel decarbonization processes, CO2 mitigation technologies, and sustainable energy conversion and utilization.
Prof. Steinfeld served as the Editor of the ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering from 2005 to 2009. He has authored over 160 research articles in refereed journals and has contributed chapters to the Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology and the Encyclopedia of Energy. His contributions to science and education have been recognized with the ASME Calvin Rice Award (2006), the UOP/Honeywell Lecturer (2006), the Electrosuisse Fachliteraturpreis (2006), the University of Minnesota Founders Lecturer (2007), and the ASME Yellott Award (2008). Prof. Steinfeld is member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. http://www.pre.ethz.ch/
Professor Toshinori Kojima
Keynote topic: Carbon sequestration by arid land afforestation (in Australia)
Toshinori Kojima is now a Professor of Department of Materials and Life Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Seikei University, a private university at Tokyo. He graduated from Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Tokyo in1975 in the area of enzyme, and got Dr. Eng. from University of Tokyo in 1981 in the area of metal extraction. After this he spent six years as a research associate and a lecture of University of Tokyo in the area of fluidization, drying, coal gasification, environmental aspect of coal ash and manufacturing of polycrystalline silicon for solar cell, he moved to the present Seikei University in 1987. After moving to the Seikei University, he started to devote himself to energy and environmental issues especially climate change issue.
By examining all of the possible measures against this issue, the results of which are summarized in one of his books, “The Carbon Dioxide Problem: Integrated Energy and Environmental Policies for the 21th Century, ISBN 90-5699-127-2, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Amsterdam, Netherland(1998.9)”, he realized the importance of carbon fixation by afforestation especially of arid land and started this new research topic under the collaboration with various areas of researchers such as forestry, soil science and so on. He has been the head of the afforestation project for these ten years.
His research activity is characterised by a very wide area including the above. He was the head of the division of Environment, Soc. Chem. Eng. Japan, and he recently received two awards; The Award of Japanese Inst. Energy, 2005, and The Award of Japanese Association for Arid Land Studies, 2009.
Professor Raphael Semiat
Keynote topic: Energy and desalination
Raphael Semiat is a professor in the Chemical Engineering Department, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. He holds the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Chair in Science, engineering and management. He is currently the director of the Grand Water research Institute and in charge of the Rabin Desalination Laboratory within the GWRI. Expert in separation processes with industrial experience in IMI(TAMI), a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals Ltd, where he served as a senior research engineer and as the head of the Heat and Mass Transfer Engineering Research Department. He has published over than hundred papers in scientific journals and similar number in conference proceedings.
Professor Semiat holds a PhD (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, 1978) and B.Sc.(Cum Laude, Chemical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, 1973).
His research interests include:
- Heat and mass transfer phenomena in separation processes
- Water technologies with emphasis on water desalination aspects
- Applications of membranes to separation processes and water desalination
- Crystallization from solutions – application to nano-particles
- Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP) and advanced absorption processes
Professor Xungai Wang
Keynote topic: Fiber materials for energy and water applications
Professor Wang is the Director of Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation (CMFI) within the Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (ITRI) at Deakin University.
Professor Xungai Wang holds a first degree in Mechanical Engineering from Xian Polytechnic University, a PhD in Fibre Science and Technology and a Graduate Diploma in Higher Education from the University of New South Wales (UNSW).
He is the 2005 recipient of Fiber Society Distinguished Achievement Award, the only researcher in Australia to have received this award to date.
In 2006, he was named the Alfred Deakin Professor, the highest Honour that Deakin University can bestow on a member of staff, in recognition of his outstanding and sustained contribution to research at Deakin University. Professor Wang is a Fellow of the Textile Institute, and also a Professional Fellow of the Institute of Nanotechnology. In 2008, Professor Wang was appointed a member of the Australian Research Council's College of Experts. In 2010, an EIF grant of $37 million was awarded to Deakin to establish the Australian Future Fibres Research and Innovation Centre (AFFRIC), in collaboration with CSIRO MSE and VCAMM.
