BIO of Katerina Aifantis

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Katerina E. Aifantis began her research with US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and obtained her Master's from the University of Cambridge and her PhD from the University of Groningen at the age of 21, becoming the youngest PhD holder in the history of The Netherlands. In 2008, she became the youngest recipient (at 24) of the European Research Council Grant to set up her on lab at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for studying nanomaterials and their applications in energy and biology. In 2013 she joined the University of Arizona as an associate professor and in 2017 she moved to the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of the University of Florida. Through funding from the Basic Energy Sciences Office of the Department of Energy she tries to understand the effect of interfaces in materials behavior. In addition to basic science questions, she uses her theoretical and experimental insight into the materials mechanical behavior to predict the most promising materials systems that can be used in various applications, ranging from next generation electrodes for Li-ion batteries, to bone regeneration scaffolds and bioacompatible electrodes for deep brain stimulation.

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BIO of Zhumabay Bakenov

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Dr. Zhumabay Bakenov is a Full Professor in Chemical and Materials Engineering of Nazarbayev University, Director of Center for Energy and Advanced Materials Science of National Laboratory Astana, Vice-Dean for Research of School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, Nazarbayev University, a Member of National Science Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan. He received his Doctor of Engineering degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, and his PhD in Chemistry from the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. Prof. Bakenov leads a large international Research Group at Nazarbayev University with several faculty, about 20 postdoctoral fellows, and more than 80 members in total. Prof. Bakenov accomplished a large number of Governmental, industrial and commercial research projects and programs. His research interests include advanced materials for energy conversion and storage, next generation rechargeable batteries, electrochemical sensors, modelling and analysis of electrochemical and thermal processes in secondary batteries including research on interfacial phenomena, surface coating, interlayers, and various functional additives to enhance materials performance. Prof. Bakenov has an excellent international collaboration with leading researchers of best international research centers. Prof. Bakenov is a Chair of International Conference “International Conference on Nanomaterials and Advanced Energy Storage Systems (INESS) since 2013. In last 10 years Prof. Bakenov published about 200 research papers and book chapters with around 4500 citations.

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BIO of Claudio Capiglia

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Claudio Capiglia, PhD (Dr Eng.), specialises in lithium-ion batteries, with twenty-five years of research and executive management experience in the battery industry in Japan. He focuses on the research & development, manufacturing, applications and commercialisation of lithium-ion battery systems and advanced materials.

He received a Doctor of Chemistry (Physical Chemistry) from Pavia University in Italy and a Doctor of Engineering from Mie University in Japan.

Since April 2021, he has been the Senior Vice President – Head of Battery Manufacturing at Reliance Industries in Mumbai (India).

Before joining Reliance, Director of Battery Technologies at Talga Group (Australia), he led battery materials research & development, production, and commercialisation and established Europe’s first anode manufacturing plant. Senior Technical Advisor at Electra Vehicles (USA), Head of Battery Program at Recruit R&D (Japan), he was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of one of the first Lithium-ion cell manufacturers in Europe. In addition, he has proposed and developed Silicon Oxide-Graphitic based anode materials in Japan. Introduced the concept, produced the first solid-state battery prototype for Toyota Motor Corporation, and the gel polymer electrolytes used for the first worldwide mass production of lithium-ion polymer batteries.

He has been awarded the position of Honorary Professor at Deakin University. Visiting Professor at the Nagoya Institute of Technology at an earlier time. Professor & Battery Group Leader at the Italian Institute of Technology and Visiting Professor at the Polytechnic University of Turin. In the Executive Program of Cooperation in Science and Technology between the Government of Italy and Japan, he was awarded project coordinator for Japan under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.

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BIO of Vasant Kumar

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Prof. Kumar has over 30 years of research experience in electrochemistry, energy devices, materials chemistry synthesis and sensors. Dr Kumar has been conducting world leading research in materials chemistry reactions at the cutting edge of new applications within an ecological calculus. His research has helped advance new knowledge in materials chemistry with innovations in ionic sensors, batteries, fuel cells, electrolytic cells and photocatalytic-reactors with examples described below.

Prof. Kumar has developed a new environmentally clean-process for recovering electro-active paste material from automotive-batteries for making new batteries (paste-to-paste recovery). Several other research centres have followed this lead by setting up collaborative research with Cambridge. A business-plan based on this work was given the first Armourers & Brasiers Venture Prize in 2008, followed by global industrial interest.

Dr Kumar has developed the use of nano-carbon scaffolds infiltrated with sulphur in order to fabricate new Li-S batteries with energy densities that are 100% higher than the best Li-ion batteries with improved cycle-life, approaching 1000 cycles thus potentially overcoming an outstanding problem that has hampered progress for several decades. This project received various innovation awards including Dow Sustainability Student Innovation Grand Award in 2013. The patented technology has been licensed to a company in China.

Dr Kumar has advanced a new metal-oxide photocatalyst composite material capable of absorbing both uv-visible light with reaction rates that are up to 2-orders of magnitude faster for disinfecting water and for destroying pollutants in air. A spin-out company (CamSES Ltd) has been set up to exploit the findings. A grant has been obtained from IEEE(USA) to design a prototype for use in flood-hit regions. This project received the DOW Sustainability Innovation Students' Runners-up prize in 2012.

He has published over 360 papers, 20 patents, 8 Chapters in Handbooks and 2 edited book (High energy density Li batteries, Wiley-VCH 2010; Rechargeable Batteries, Wiley-VCH 2022). He has supervised over 40 PhD students, 30 post-doctoral researchers, 15 visiting students and hosted 12 visiting professors. He is the Founder and Director of several start-up companies -Solutions4Hydrogen Ltd in Pune, India; Environmental Monitoring & Control Ltd, Stafford, UK; Cambridge Solar Energy Solutions Ltd, Cambridge UK; Multi nano sense technologies Ltd, Mumbai/Nagpur, India - for furthering his research into industrial applications in the areas of energy and environment. He has worked very closely with industry and research organizations and has been successful in transferring technology to industry.He was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Engineering by University of Malaysia in 2011 and 5 Honorary Professorships. In 2014 he was awarded the Kroll Medal by the Institute of Materials, Mineral and Mining (IOM3) in London for industrial innovation based on scientific research. Prof. Kumar is the Editor of Trans IMM C published by Taylor&Francis Group on behalf of IOM3. He is a member of the Advisory Board of Tech Met Ltd and S Korea National Lithium Research Centre.

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BIO of Ahsan Ul Haq Qurashi

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Dr. Ahsan Ul Haq Qurashi is Associate Professor in Department of Chemistry Khalifa University. He received his PhD from Jeonbuk National University, South Korea 2008, and completed post-doctoral work at Toyama University, Toyama, Japan under the Venture Business Laboratory (VBL) program in 2010. He served as Assistant and Associate Professor in King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia from 2010-2019. He also remains visiting faculty in EPFL Switzerland, Tokyo University and Nagoya University, Japan. He is trained as nanotechnologist and published more than 120 articles in peer reviewed SCI journals, presented over 65 papers in international conferences proceedings various invited talks and keynote speaker worldwide. He contributed 7 book chapters and edited book on “Metal Chalcogenide Nanostructures for Renewable Energy Applications” and hold 5 patents (USPTO) as inventor and co-inventor on new materials and green hydrogen production technology. His research focus is on new functional nanomaterials development, investigate structure-property relationship for energy conversion devices and systems such as green hydrogen production, carbon dioxide conversion into clean fuels, energy storage (electrodes and electrolytes) and biomedical applications. He received governmental and industrial grants worth $4 million, as principal and co-investigator. He is subject editor/editorial board member in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (sabbatical), Materials Research Bulletin and Scientific Reports.

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BIO of Alain Tressaud

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Alain TRESSAUD is CNRS Emeritus Research Director at ICMCB-CNRS, Bordeaux University. He is Honorary President of the European Academy of Science (Brussels), after being the President in the 2017-18 period. He is member of several European Academies (EASA, Austria, Disting. Fellow SCF, France). He founded and chaired until 2008 the French Network on Fluorine Chemistry, sponsored by CNRS. He received many awards, including the Atomic Centre Agency (CEA) Award of French Academy of Sciences (2008), Fluorine Award of the American Chemical Society (2011) and International Henri Moissan Prize (2012).
His scientific interest covers various fields, e.g. synthesis, physical chemical characterizations, applications in materials sciences, solid state chemistry & fluorine chemistry. His works also deal with surface modification of materials and intercalation chemistry. His scientific production includes more than 360 papers in international journals, 20 chapters contributions in books and 12 internationalized patents. In addition, he edited 11 books, including the Editor-in-Chief responsibility of the book series “Advances in Fluorine Science” (2006), “Progress in Fluorine Science” (2015 →), Elsevier. In 2011 his book on “Le fluor: histoire, applications & paradoxes” appeared at CNRS-Editions, Paris and in 2018 the multi-authored book “Progress in Science, Progress in Society” at Springer-Nature.

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BIO of Rachid Yazami

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Professor Rachid Yazami is the recipient of the 2014 Draper Prize of the National academy of Engineering, considered as the Nobel Prize of Engineering. He served the Cheng Tsang Man Chair Professor in Energy at the School of Materials Science and Engineering of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. He also was appointed the Program Director in the Energy Research Institute and Principal Investigator of the TUM‐Create Centre of Electromobility in Singapore. Prior to Singapore, Professor Rachid Yazami was a Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) for over 35 years and served as a Visiting Associate at the California Institute of Technology, where he conducted research on electrode materials such as graphite nanotubes, nano‐silicon and nano‐germanium anodes. In 1980, Professor Rachid Yazami discovered the reversible intercalation of lithium into graphite in an electrochemical cell using a polymer electrolyte. This discovery led to the lithium‐graphite anode now used in commercial lithium-ion batteries, an over US$80B value market.

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