Ib Chorkendorff is Professor in Heterogeneous Catalysis at DTU-Physics. He earned his PhD in 1985 Odense University Denmark, and after a post-doc at University of Pittsburgh, USA, he was employed in 1987 at DTU where he became full professor in 1999. From 2005-2016 he was director of Danish National Research Foundation Center for Individual Nanoparticle Functionality (CINF) and from 2016 he has been director of The Villum Center for the Science of Sustainable Fuels and Chemicals (V-SUSTAIN). He was elected Fellow of The Academy for Technical Sciences in 2001 and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2018. He has authored or coauthored more than 400 scientific papers, 23 patents and one textbook “Concepts of Modern Catalysis and Kinetics”. He has since 2017 been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher (ISI) (top 1% in the field). Ib Chorkendorff’s research activities focus on finding new catalysts for improving sustainable energy production/conversion and for environmental protection. He is co-founder of three start-up companies RENCAT APS, HPNOW APS and Spectroinlets APS and has received numerous awards, latest the Villum Kann Rassmussen Annual Award (2021), which is the most prestigious award in Denmark and in 2022 The Eni Award: Energy Frontiers Prize.

New Routes of Ammonia Synthesis and Decomposition

Hideo Hosono is an honorary and institute professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology and a distinguished fellow and a group leader at National Institute for Materials Science. He received a Ph.D. in Applied Chemistry from Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1982, and became a professor of Tokyo Tech in 1999 via Nagoya Tech, Institute for Molecular Science and Vanderbilt University.  He studied point defects in SiO₂ glass and worked on creation of photosensitive glasses utilizing point defects, photonic glasses by ion implantation, protonic conductive glasses and micro-porous glass-ceramics with phosphate skeleton.  After these researches, he shifted the main subject to cultivation of electro-active functionality in transparent oxides in 1993. His research focus is creation of novel functional materials. The representative achievements so far are material design of transparent oxide semiconductors such as IGZO and their TFT applications for a state-of the art displays such as OLED-TVs, creation of stable electrides and their application to catalysts for ammonia synthesis, and discovery of high-Tc iron-based superconductors which led to the 2nd research fever since high-Tc cuprates. His current interest is “quantum materials and catalysis”. Hosono is a recipient of various honors including the Japan Prize, von Hippel Prize (MRS), J. McGroddy Prize (APS), Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize (SID), Eduard Rhein Award (Germany), Imperial Prize (the Japan Academy), and is a Thomson Reuter Citation Laureate and a foreign fellow of the Royal Society.

Progress in catalysts for green NH₃ synthesis: What we learned from the past decade

Hideaki Kobayashi is a Research Professor at Tohoku University, Japan. He has been involved in research on fundamental processes of combustion phenomena in extreme environments, such as high-pressure turbulent premixed combustion, supersonic combustion, microgravity combustion and low-oxygen, high-temperature air combustion. He served as the team leader of the ammonia direct combustion research in the national project SIP “Energy Carriers”, which ran for five years from 2014. He is presently involved in projects on basic ammonia combustion, development of ammonia gas turbines and industrial furnaces using ammonia. He completed his master degree at Tohoku University in 1983 and became an associate professor at the university in 1992 after obtaining PhD in 1991. He became a professor at Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University in 2003. He served as President of Combustion Society of Japan from 2015 to 2017 and Vice-President of The Combustion Institute from 2016 to 2020. He received The Commendation for Science and Technology by The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science in 2017 and Technology. In 2018 he was honored as a Fellow of The Combustion Institute and in 2022 he was awarded The Bernard Lewis Gold Medal.

Ammonia direct combustion – General features and applications

Christine Rousselle is professor at the University of Orléans (Laboratoire PRISME). Her main research fields are: fundamental combustion to applications, new combustion modes (lean burn, LTC, RCCI,…), low and zero carbon-fields (ammonia, alcohols, low-carbon fuels), described by using optical diagnostics, and with some focuses for engines. She has held positions at the International Energy Agency (IEA) as representative of France and as chair/co-chair of the IEA Clean and Efficient Combustion Technical collaborative program. She is a member of the Scientific Council of IFP-EN. She is a Fellow of the Combustion Institute (2021), Associate Editor of the proceedings of the Combustion Institute and the Journal of Ammonia Energy. She was chair of 2^nd Symposium on Ammonia Energy, held at University of Orléans in July 2023. She is ambassador of ASME-ICE. She also has chaired the mini-symposium about ammonia spray in the International Conference of Numerical Combustion (Kyoto, Mai 2024). She is also visiting professor at IFS-Tohoku University.

Net ammonia engine: an utopia or still a challenge?

Prof. Junwang (John) Tang is a Member of the Academy of Europe, a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow, Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Fellow of IMMM. He is the Founding Director of Industrial Catalysis Center in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chair Professor of Materials Chemistry and Catalysis at Tsinghua University, China and a Visiting Professor at University College London, UK. Tang concentrates on Renewable Energy-to-Chemicals by coupling thermo-catalysis (phonons) with photo-catalysis (photons), involving small molecule activation to produce zero-carbon fuels (eg. H₂O to H₂, N₂ to NH₃) and valuable chemicals (CO₂ to alcohols and CH₄ to C₂⁺ hydrocarbons) as well as microwave -catalysed plastic recycling, together with the investigation of the underlying charge dynamics and kinetics by state-of-the-art spectroscopies, resulting in >250 papers published in Nature Catalysis, Nature Energy, Nature Materials, Nature Reviews Materials, Nature Sustainability, Chemical Reviews, Chem. Soc. Rev., Materials Today, Nature Commu., JACS, Angew Chemie etc. with ~29,000 citations. Prof. Tang has received many awards, the latest of which is the 2022 IChemE Oil and Gas Global Awards, 2021 IChemE Andrew Medal, 2021 the RSC Corday-Morgan Prize and 2021 Royal Society-Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship etc. He also sits on the Editorial Board of 5 international journals, eg. the Editor of Applied Catalysis B and Associate Editor of Chin. Journal of Catalysis etc.

Renewable energy-driven NH₃ synthesis and its decomposition

Shanwen Tao is currently the Warwick-Monash Alliance Professor in Chemical Engineering & Sustainable Processes at the University of Warwick. Tao is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. With about 25 years of experience, Tao specializes in developing new electronic and ionic conducting materials for batteries and fuel cells. Tao’s research involves new materials, fuel cell systems, and catalysts related to ammonia synthesis and cracking. In terms of materials, Tao’s group discovered the first fast OH^- ionic conductors in ceramic materials (Nature Communications 2024, patented). Together with Prof. John Irvine, Tao discovered the first efficient redox-stable anode (La_0.75Sr_0.25)Cr_0.5Mn_0.5O_3-δ for solid oxide fuel cells (Nature Materials 2003). Tao and Irvine also identified an easily sintered, stable, dense, and conductive proton-conducting material, BaCe_0.5Zr_0.3Y_0.16Zn_0.04O_3-δ, which exhibited high proton conductivity at intermediate temperatures. In respect of new fuel cell systems, Tao ’ s group developed the first near-ambient temperature ( ≤ 200 ° C) solid oxide fuel cell (NAT-SOFC) and near-ambient temperature electrolytic cell (NAT-SOEC). Together with Prof. John Irvine, Tao developed the first reversible solid oxide fuel cell, the first symmetrical solid oxide fuel cell, and the first all-perovskite solid oxide fuel cell. Tao’s group also developed the first urea/urine fuel cells, which have been highlighted by BBC News and New Scientist. Tao’s group invented the first low-temperature ammonia fuel cell based alkaline membrane electrolyte, and the first ammonia fuel cell based on ceramic mixed OH^-/H⁺ ionic conducting electrolyte (NAT-SOFC). Tao’s group reported the first symmetrical ammonia fuel cell. Tao is very interested in using carbon-free ammonia as a hydrogen carrier to solve the challenges associated with hydrogen storage and transport. Tao’s group has developed robust and highly active ammonia synthesis catalysts for the Haber-Bosch process for green ammonia synthesis (patented). Tao’s group also developed a low-cost Ru-free ammonia cracking catalyst with ammonia conversion nearly 100% at a temperature below 600 °C.

Efficient direct ammonia fuel cells for transport applications