Speakers

Invited

Keynote

R. LYNDEN BELL AWARDEE

Prof. J. A. P. Coutinho

Chemistry Department of University of Aveiro, Portugal
CICECO Director

Website

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João A. P. Coutinho is Full Professor at the Chemistry Department of University of Aveiro, Portugal where he is director of CICECO, one of the leading European Laboratories in Materials Science. He leads a multidisciplinary research team that focuses on the development of green solvents and novel separation processes for biorefinery and circular economy. Currently he strives to apply biobased solvents, DES and ionic liquids to these processes and attempts to better understand their physical-chemical behavior.

INVITED SPEAKERS

Prof. Stefano Passerini

Senior Expert Advisor
Austrian Institute of Technology – Center for Transport Technologies
Giefinggasse 4, 1210 Wien, Austria
https://publications.ait.ac.at/en/persons/stefano-passerini

KIT Distinguished Senior Fellow
Helmholtz Institute Ulm – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Helmholtzstrasse 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany

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Stefano Passerini is Senior Advisor at the Austrian Institute of Technology since July 2024 and Distinguished Senior Fellow at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) since January 2023.

In 2023 he has been Professor at the Chemistry Department of the Sapienza University of Rome after retiring from the Professor position at KIT and the co-Director position at Helmholtz Institute Ulm.

His research focuses on the basic understanding and development of materials for high-energy batteries and supercapacitors, with the goal to create sustainable energy storage systems from environmentally friendly and available materials and processes.

He is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of ionic liquids and the development of sodium-ion batteries.

He co-authored more than 700 scientific papers (Scopus H-Index: 122; > 50,000 citations), a few book chapters and several international patents.

In 2012, he has been awarded with the Research Award of the Electrochemical Society Battery Division.

Since 2015 he is acting as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Power Sources.

He has been nominated Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry (2016) and the Electrochemical Society Inc (2020).

Since 2019 he is a member of the Leopoldina German Academy of Science.

Prof. Francesca D’Anna

Professor of Organic Chemistry
University of Palermo
Viale delle Scienze, Ed. 16
90128 Palermo, Italy
https://www.unipa.it/persone/docenti/d/francesca.danna/en/

Bio-sketch

Francesca D’Anna is Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Department of Biological, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Palermo (Italy), since March 2021.

Her research focuses in the field of Organic, Supramolecular and, above all, Green Chemistry. After her initial training in the field of Physical Organic Chemistry, she undertook the study of properties and applications, as chiral selectors, of host guest complexes based on cyclodextrins. Since 2006, she started the investigation of properties of ionic liquids, mainly addressing their application as reaction media. The expertise gained allowed her to move toward their applications. Consequently, taking advantage from the expertise in the field of supramolecular chemistry, since 2012 she has used ionic liquids to obtain supramolecular gels to be applied as reaction media, sorbent systems in the field of environmental remediation and preservation. She has devoted particular attention to the nature of both gelator and solvents to obtain sorbent materials of low environmental impact and highly recyclable. Since to 2018, she has addressed her attention to the possibility to obtain ionic liquid-based thermochromic systems to be used for energy saving.

Francesca D’Anna is author of more than 145 publications in ISI journals and 4 book chapters (h_index = 36; n_citations = 3590) and several oral and poster communications to national and international conferences. She has also given some invited lectures to national and international congresses.
The research activity developed in the field of Supramolecular and Green Chemistry gave her the opportunity to collaborate with different foreign scientists (Prof. Richard G. Weiss, Georgetown University of Washington; Prof. Kenneth R. Seddon and Dr. Nimal H. Gunaratne of Quill of Belfast; Prof. Jonathan W. Steed of University of Durham; Prof. Peter Licence of University of Nottingham).

Since 2018, Francesca D’Anna has devoted her attention also to the use of other alternative and green solvents like deep eutectic solvents. Very recently, she has applied the combination of ionic liquids and ultrasound irradiation to the chemical recycling of plastic waste and from 2024, she is working also in the field of covalent organic framework.

Francesca D’Anna is member of the Italian Chemical Society. From January 2019 to December 2021, she has worked as President of the Sicily Section of the Italian Chemical Society and from January 2023 she is Vice President of the Organic Division of the Italian Chemical Society. From January 2022 she is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Prof. Anja V. Mudring

Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering Process and Materials Engineering
Aarhus University (DK)

Dr. Sheng Dai

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and University of Tennessee (USA)

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory and University of Tennessee

Dr. Sheng Dai is currently a corporate fellow and section head overseeing four research groups in the areas of separations and polymer chemistry at the Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). His current research interests include ionic liquids, porous materials, and their applications for separation sciences and energy storage as well as catalysis by nanomaterials. He was named US DOE Distinguished Scientist Fellow for pioneering advances in the development of functional materials in 2022. His research has led to the 2020 Max Bredig Award for Ionic Liquids and Molten Salts, the 2019 ACS Award in Separation Science and Technology, 2018 IMMA Award given by the International Mesostructured Materials Association, Battelle Distinguished Inventor Award in 2016, and seven R&D100 Awards. He is a Fellow of Material Research Society and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Prof. Tamar Greaves

School of Science, RMIT University
Melbourne (AUS)

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Tam Greaves is a Professor and the Assistant Associate Dean of Physics at RMIT University (Australia). She has been at RMIT since 2014, and prior to that was at CSIRO (the government research labs for Australia).

Tam started working with ionic liquids in 2005, and has enjoyed working with them ever since! She conducts research into understanding the fundamental physicochemical properties of ionic liquids, their mixtures, liquid nanostructure and the solvophobic effect. She is currently developing ionic liquid solvents for use with biological molecules in a broad range of applications including protein crystallization, biocatalysis and cryopreservation, as well as projects around plastic recycling. Her research is centred around obtaining an understanding of fundamental interactions and specific ion effects to be able to develop solvents which can address real world problems.

A key focus of Tam’s research approach is the development of high throughput methods for the experimental design, sample synthesis, characterisation and data analysis. This includes the use of liquid handling robots, plate readers and automated data collection, custom written python scripts for data analysis and machine learning approaches. She is a frequent user of ANSTO facilities for neutrons and X-rays, in particular the small and wide angle scattering beamline of the Australian Synchrotron. This has been instrumental in her research for gaining insights into liquid nanostructures, lyotropic liquid crystal phases and protein structures.

She has 117 peer-reviewed papers and 2 book chapters, many of which are in the field of ionic liquids or deep eutectic solvents. Her publications have received more than 8700 citations, and she has a current h-index of 33.

Tam is active in her scientific community, and is the past President of the Australian Colloids and Interface Society (ACIS), and has held leadership roles on committees for the Australian Synchrotron. She has also been a co-chair and organiser for multiple conferences including for ACIS and for the Australasian Symposium of Ionic Liquids, and she is part of the organising committee for the 10^th Congress on Ionic Liquids (COIL-10) 2025.