Speakers

Dr. Conchi O. Ania is a Research Director of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at (CNRS) in Orléans, France. She also holds a position as Investigador Cientifico of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC, Spain). Since 2023, she is Project Director at Petru Poni Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry in Iasi (Romania).

She has a long-standing interest on nanoporous carbons with tailored surface chemistry and architectures for applications in energy conversion (solar fuels, photovoltaics) and storage, and environmental remediation (adsorption, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis).

She received the national L’Oreal-Unesco 2008 Research Fellowship “For women in Science”, and the Excellence Research Award by University of Granada in Spain. In 2016 she received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council.

In 2023 she received the Silver Medal of the Institute of Chemistry of CNRS (France).

Since 2020 she is editor of Carbon journal (Elsevier), and serves on the Editorial Boards of Adsorption, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, and the Journal Colloids & Surface C: Environmental Aspects.

Engineer from CPE Lyon (2000), PhD from Université Lyon 1 (2003) and holder of the Accreditation to supervise research (Université Lyon 1) since February 2023 on “The life cycle of hydrotreating catalysts: from the genesis of the active phase to catalyst recycling”. After completing a PhD at IRCElyon in collaboration with PETROBRAS (Brasil), on the study of noble metal catalysts supported on zirconia for the hydrodenitrogenation of diesel fuel, she completed a post-doc in 2004 at the X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Laboratory of the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry in Prague (Czech Republic).

In 2005, she joined IFPEN's Catalysis, Biocatalysis and Separation division as a research engineer, working in the Catalysis by Sulfide department to develop catalysts for the selective hydrodesulfurization of FCC gasolines and hydrotreatment of gas oils. In 2013, she was hired for 2 years at the Axelera competitiveness cluster as a project and innovation manager. In 2015, back at IFPEN, she worked on the reuse of catalysts via their regeneration and rejuvenation and took charge of the “Hydrotreating catalyst rejuvenation” project in 2019. Since 2022, she is also in charge of the “Catalyst metals recycling” projects.

She is also an active member of the SCF (French Chemical Society), former president of GECAT (2012-2015) and in this context helped organize 3 French Catalysis Congresses. Currently secretary of the DIVCAT catalysis division (2022-2027), she was Chair of the session “Catalysis in refining and petrochemistry: current and future trends” at the 18th International Catalysis Congress (ICC) held in Lyon in July 2024, and on the organizing committee for FCCAT 2025 (French Conference on Catalysis).

https://www.ifpenergiesnouvelles.com/page/elodie-devers

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8273-9666

Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Granada and member of the Research Group: NanoTech – Nanomaterials and Sustainable Chemical Technologies, teaches various undergraduate, doctoral and master's programs, as well as specialization courses in the field of heterogeneous catalysis and materials science. His research focuses on the design of advanced nanomaterials and the study of their performance as adsorbents, sensors or thermal, electro or photocatalysts for the production/storage of clean energy, green chemistry synthesis processes and, mainly, environmental processes for the treatment of water and/or air effluents. 

Since 1990, he has been involved in the development of research projects with national or international public funding, sometimes in collaboration with companies in the industrial sector. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 1993 (with honours, Award to the best doctorate) and completed a fruitful postdoctoral fellowship at IST in Lisbon (1993-96), allowing a close collaboration along 30 years with various high-level Portuguese research groups, to whom he will always be grateful.

https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=arCuH5gAAAAJ&hl=es

https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-2468-8407

https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=7003289379

Antonio Leyva-Pérez was born and grew up in Seville (Spain). He studied Chemistry at the University of Valencia. After that, he carried out the Ph.D. on heterogeneous catalysis under the supervision of Prof. Hermenegildo García at the

“Instituto de Tecnología Química” (ITQ) in The Polythecnic University of Valencia. His thesis received the Special Award of the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2006. After a short stay in the M.I.T. at Prof. Steven L. Buchwald ́s laboratories, working in organometallics, he did post–doctoral studies in the Chemistry Department of The University of Cambridge at Prof. Steven Ley ́s group working in the total synthesis of the complex natural products isobongregic acid and epyriculol.

In 2008, he returned to the ITQ to work with Prof. Avelino Corma. After receiving a Tenure-track research contract in 2014, and a Distinguished Research permanent position in 2016, he works independently as a Scientific Researcher of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) at the ITQ.

Antonio is the leader of the group Catalysis for Sustainable Organic Reactions Group (https://catsusorg-itq.webs.upv.es/), where he directs >20 researchers (PhDs and postdocs). He holds nearly 160 publications in the field of catalysis and organic chemistry (h index 53, google scholar), and he also actively collaborates with international chemical companies, with >25

patents and 4 processes under exploitation in industrial plants.

Investigadora Coordenadora do LNEC – Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, Chefe do Núcleo de Engenharia Sanitária desde 2015. Doutorada em Engenharia Química, é especialista em qualidade, tratamento e reutilização de água

Cláudia Gomes Silva graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) in 2001 and completed an MSc in Environmental Engineering in 2003 at the same institution. She obtained her PhD degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Porto in 2008.

She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto and a Senior Researcher at the Associate Laboratory in Chemical Engineering (ALiCE). Her main research interests extend into distinct but complementary areas, such as materials science (synthesis, functionalization and characterization of nanomaterials), environmental (photo)catalysis (chemical synthesis, hydrogen production, water treatment) and process engineering (design and optimization of reactors and intensification of chemical processes).

She is currently the vice-president of the Iberian Association of Photocatalysis and president of the Industrial Chemistry group of the Portuguese Chemical Society.

Rui C. Martins obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Coimbra in 2011, where he also completed his degree in 2006 and habilitation in 2024. He is currently an Associate Professor with habilitation at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Coimbra.

His research focuses on applying Separation and Reaction Engineering to environmental remediation. During his PhD, he co-founded Adventech, a University of Coimbra spin-off dedicated to developing integrated technologies for liquid and gaseous effluent treatment. In 2019, he co-founded Envitecna, a company focused on environmental protection equipment.

He has coordinated several research projects, including the Horizon Europe project H2OforAll, aimed at improving drinking water treatment. He is currently Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Coimbra, President of PRODEQ (Association for Chemical Engineering Development), and regional representative at the Portuguese Order of Engineers' College of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Manuel Souto Salom (Valencia, 1988) is an Oportunius Research Professor and Principal Investigator at CiQUS (University of Santiago de Compostela). He is also a Guest/Visiting Professor at the University of Aveiro. He holds a double degree in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from the University of Valencia (UV) and from the École de Chimie, Polymères et Matériaux (ECPM) de Strasbourg, respectively, doing a research internship at PLAPIQUI (Argentina). He also earned a Master’s degree in Molecular and Supramolecular Chemistry (2011) from the University of Strasbourg conducting his Master thesis at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST, Lisbon). He obtained his PhD in Materials Science (FPU fellow, triple award-winning thesis) at Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) with Prof. Jaume Veciana in 2016 conducting two research stays at the National University of Singapore and at the University of Antwerp. In 2017, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol-UV) with a Juan de la Cierva fellowship. In 2019, he started his independent research career as an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Aveiro and CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials. In 2022 he was promoted to Principal Researcher (tenure, Permanent Researcher) at the same institution. His research interests encompass molecular electronics, electroactive polymers and organic batteries. His current research interest is the design and synthesis of new functional electroactive framework materials (e.g., COFs & MOFs) based on redox-active organic building blocks for energy storage applications. In 2021, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant with the project ELECTROCOFS, which aims to design a new generation of redox-active COF electrodes for rechargeable batteries. He received, among other distinctions, the Young Researcher Award by the RSEQ (Group Leader Category). He is member of the RSEQ (board member of GENAM and STGAL) and SPQ chemical societies and Fellow of the Young Academies of Europe (YAE) and Spain (AJdE). 

Dr Inês Graça is a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, and currently the Director of Postgraduate Taught Teaching, in the School of Engineering at the University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom). She holds an MEng in Chemical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal) and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal) and the University of Poitiers (France). Since 2007, she has been working in the field of Catalysis and Reaction Engineering. Her research focuses on the design and optimisation of multi-functional, nanostructured heterogeneous catalysts, particularly metal-promoted zeolites and hierarchical zeolites, to enable sustainable routes for waste conversion. Her core expertise includes carbon dioxide capture and utilisation, biomass valorisation, and the upcycling of plastic waste into value-added products. She is especially interested in creating synergies between different waste‑derived resources, using them both as inputs for catalyst design and as feedstocks for innovative, low‑carbon processes. Inês is an early-career board member of the Carbon Capture Science & Technology journal by Elsevier and a member of the editorial board of the Industrial Catalysis section in Catalysts. She has currently over 50 research papers and a h-index of 31.