GIC2023 Confirmed Plenary Speakers:
Prof. Gregory Stephanopoulos (MIT, USA)
Title: Can biotechnology deliver cost effective liquid fuels from renewable feedstocks?
Greg Stephanopoulos is the W.H. Dow Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at MIT, and Instructor of Bioengineering at Harvard Medical School (1997-). He received his degrees in Chemical Engineering and taught at Caltech between 1978-85, after which he was appointed Professor of ChE at MIT. He initiated the field of metabolic engineering, the engineering of microbes for the production of fuels and chemicals, and has co-authored or –edited 5 books, more than 450 papers and 60 patents, and supervised more than 130 graduate and post-doctoral students. He co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Metabolic Engineering, and served as co-editor-in chief of Current Opinion in Biotechnology. He serves on the Editorial Boards of 10 scientific journals and the Advisory Boards of 5 ChE departments. For his research and educational contributions, Prof. Stephanopoulos was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (2003) and the Academy of Athens and has been recognized with more than 25 major awards including the R.H. Wilhelm Award of AIChE, the Founders Award of AIChE and the ACS E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Also, he won the George Washington Carver Award of BIO, the Eni Prize for Renewable and non-Conventional Energy, the 2014 Walker award from AIChE, the John Fritz Medal of the AAAS, the 2016 Eric and Sheila Samson $1 Prime Minister Prize (Israel) and the 2017 Novozymes Prize (2017). He has honorary doctorates from 3 Universities and has served in the Board of Directors and President of AIChE (2016). Professor Stephanopoulos has taught undergraduate and graduate courses of the core of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at Caltech and MIT and co-authored the first textbook on Metabolic Engineering. He is presently directing a research group of approximately 15 researchers who work on applications of metabolic engineering for the production of natural products, fuels and chemicals.
Prof. José María Fraile Dolado
Title: Fine Chemicals through Heterogeneous (and Supported) Catalysis: beyond recoverability
José M. Fraile obtained his Ph D in Chemistry in 1992 in the University of Zaragoza. He made a post-doctoral stage (1993-1994) in the École Nationale Superieure de Chimie de Montpellier (France), and a short research stage (1996) in the Institut de Recherches sur la Catalyse (Lyon, France) and he was invited professor (2003) in the University of Regensburg (Germany).
He got a Tenured Scientist position at the CSIC in 1999 and he was promoted to Scientific Researcher in 2008. He is the director of the ISQCH (Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis, mixed institute of the CSIC and the University of Zaragoza) since May 2021.
He has participated in 35 national, European, regional and bilateral research projects, and 20 research contracts with different companies.
His research line was first the application of heterogeneous and supported catalysis to the synthesis of fine chemicals, including the immobilization of enantioselective catalysts and the effect of the support on the enantioselectivity. He has been also interested in the role of catalysis in sustainable chemistry, from different points of view, such as the use of environmentally friendly reagents, the use of alternative (neoteric) solvents in catalytic processes or the transformation of renewable raw materials, including the synthesis of heterogeneous catalysts from carbohydrates. More recently his research has been focused on the valorization of waste and residues by chemical transformation, in the context of the Circular Economy. Additionally, he has been involved in projects dealing with the controlled delivery of pharmaceuticals by interactions with solid supports.
He is author of more than 180 scientific papers and 9 book chapters, as well as more than 160 communications to national and international congresses, and 2 patents. He has supervised 12 doctoral theses, 2 of them with international mention and 1 with industrial doctorate mention.
GIC2023 Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Prof. Walter Baratta
Title: Ruthenium complexes as efficient catalysts for transfer hydrogenation reactions
Walter Baratta obtained a fellowship from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in 1983 and graduated in Chemistry cum laude in 1989. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1993 under the supervision of Prof. F. Calderazzo. During this period he also carried out research within the group of Prof. P. S. Pregosin at the Technical Institute of Zürich (CH), studying multinuclear NMR spectroscopy (January 1992 through December 1992). In 1994 he joined the group of Prof. W. A. Herrmann at the Technical Institute of München (D) with a postdoctoral Alexander von Humboldt fellowship (June 1994 through May 1996). In 1996 he became research associate at the University of Udine within the group of Prof. P. Rigo, starting a work on homogeneous catalysis with ruthenium complexes. In addition to the development of cyclopentadienyl ruthenium complexes for carbene transfer reactions, a particular successful outcome has been the isolation of 14-electron complexes (Ru and Pt) stabilized by agostic interactions. His current interest is focused on homogeneous catalysis, with particular regard to transfer hydrogenation and hydrogenation of carbonyl compounds promoted by highly efficient ruthenium and osmium pincer catalysts. In 2005 he became professor of chemistry at the University of Udine and since 2019 he is full professor of general and inorganic chemistry. From 2017 he is coordinator of the PhD program in "Food and Human Health" of the University of Udine.
W.B. is author of more than 100 publications (h = 41) and 9 patents. Several ampy ruthenium catalysts for hydrogenation are commercialized by Johnson Matthey. In 2008 he was awarded of the first prize of the Solvias Ligand Contest (Basel, CH) and the Thieme Chemistry Journal Award 2009.
Giuseppe Bellussi (AIDIC working group on the energy transition)
Title: Methanol, a potential carrier for the energy transition
• From 2006 to 2016 he was the R&D manager of Refining and Marketing division and from 2016 to his retirement in 2019 he was a Corporate Senior Vice President in charge of the R&D program on the energy transition.
• In recent years he has participated in the development of various new industrial processes implemented in Italy and in other countries.
• Since 2017 he has been a founder and director of Eni's share of OGCI-Climate Investment, a venture capital company for investment in technologies aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from the energy sector, based in London.
• He is the author of over 120 patents and 130 articles in international journals and has received several international academic awards in Europe, China, Japan and the United States, as well as in Italy.
• From 2010 to 2016 he was the President of the International Zeolite Association.
• He is a member of the United States Academy of Engineering and a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Bologna Institute.
Prof. Giulia Licini
Title: Aminotriphenolate Metal Complexes for Sustainable Catalysis
Giulia Licini - Professor of Organic Chemistry - Calatysis and Molecular Recognition Group ;(REACT) Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova - Via Marzolo 1, 35131 Padova E-mail: giulia.licini@unipd.it
Coordinator of the Interdivisional Group ‘Green and Sustainable Chemistry’ (GI GC-CS, SCI)
Board member of the Division of the Organic Chemistry (SCI)
Current research interests:
- Oxidation catalysis; design, synthesis and application of multidentate, highly symmetric ligands in catalysis, oxidative valorization of biomass (lignin) and CO2 fixation; stereoselective catalysis and molecular recognition
Publications >125 papers and book chapters
Education
1988-1989: Post Doc at Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University, Co, USA
(Prof. Albert I. Meyers)
1986-1988: PhD in Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Italy
(supervisor: Prof. Giorgio Modena)
1979-1984: Degree in Chemistry, University of Padova, Italy
Academic Career
1989-1990 National Research Council Researcher, CMRO, Padova, Italy
1990-2000: Department of Chemical Sciences, Padova University, Assistant professor
2000-2011 Department of Chemical Sciences, Padova University, Associate Professor
2011- present Department of Chemical Sciences, Padova University Full Professor
2007: Visiting Professor at Louis Pasteur University, Laboratoire de Chimie Organométallique et de Catalyse, Institut LeBel, Strasburg, France.
2016 and 2017: Visiting Professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Ecole Polytechnique de Bruxelle, Engineering of Molecular Nanosystems Group
Prof. Gian Luca Chiarello
Title: Modulated Excitation Spectroscopy: A Powerful Tool to Study Catalytic Mechanism of Reaction
Gian Luca Chiarello graduated in Industrial Chemistry at the University of Milano in 2004 and received his PhD in Industrial Chemistry from the same University in 2007, with two thesis in heterogeneous catalysis under the supervision of prof. Lucio Forni. In 2006 he spent part of his PhD work at the ETH Z ̈urich in Prof. Alfons Baiker group. His PhD thesis was awarded with the Debut in Research Prize - “ENI Award” 2008. After the PhD he was post doc in photocatalysis at the university of Milano in prof. Elena Selli group, then in operando X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (Germany) in prof. Jan-Dierk Grunwaldt group, and finally at EMPA-Dübendorf (Switzerland) in prof. Anke Weidenkaff group, where he has implemented the SuperXAS beamline of the Swiss Light Source (SLS, Villigen, Switzerland) with a set up for coupling in situ XAS and IR spectroscopies. After the period abroad, he returned to the Department of Chemistry of the University of Milan as assistant Professor (2013-2019) and from 2019 to date as Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry.