CNIE Participates in the 3rd UCRA Conference in Poland

CNIE participates in the 3rd International Conference on Unconventional Catalysis, Reactors and Applications (UCRA Conference) held in Warsaw, Poland.

Prior to the actual conference, Chemistry Nobel Laureate Prof Frances H. Arnold (CalTech) presented the Marie Sklodowska Curie Lecture on her groundbreaking work on directed evolution of enzymes, and Astronaut Prof Jeffrey Hoffmann (MIT; five Space Shuttle missions) presented an exciting Honorary Lecture on how we might generate oxygen in situ from resources on Mars. This was an excellent introduction to the topics of the main conference and opportunities for process intensification.

Prof Marc-Olivier Coppens had the honour to give the opening plenary lecture on ‘Taking clues from nature to advance catalysis and reactor engineering for sustainable development’. He also presented research on behalf of Dr Nidhi Kapil, a CNIE research fellow. The talk focussed on ‘Supported Gold Catalyst: Design, Synthesis, and Characterisation’ under the theme of Novel Catalyst Preparation Methods.

Mohammed Babkoor, a PhD student at CNIE, presented a poster on ‘Acid-modified ZSM-5 catalyst for the selective conversion of methanol to ethylene or propane’, which highlighted the optimisation of zeolite catalyst for methanol to hydrocarbon conversion.

The conference was a valuable opportunity for CNIE to share its research, learn about exciting new directions, and engage with scientists and engineers from around the world.

Acknowledgements: UCRA conference committee, EPSRC ‘Sustainable Manufacturing Grant’, SABIC