Confirmed Plenary Speakers
Prof. Yong Gan
Chinese Academy Engineering, China

Yong Gan, professor-level senior engineer, metallurgical material expert, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering (2001), doctoral tutor. Since 1994, he has been the director of the National Engineering Research Center for Continuous Casting Technology. Since April 2001, he has served as the president of the Iron and Steel Research Institute. He is also the president of China Rare Earth Industry Association and the Chairman of China Metal Society. In 2002, he was elected as a representative of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and a member of the Presidium. In 2007, he was elected as the representative of the 17th CPC National Congress. In June 2010, he was elected as the vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He is currently a member of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and deputy director of the Population, Resources and Environment Committee, and the director of the National New Materials Industry Development Expert Advisory Committee.
Academician Yong Gan has been engaged in metallurgy, new materials and modern steel process technology research for a long time. He is one of the academic leaders of materials, metallurgy and modern steel processes in China. He has won 2 second prizes of National Science and Technology Progress Award and 5 first prizes of provincial and ministerial level scientific and technological progress. He has obtained 24 patents, including 15 invention patents, published more than 140 papers and published 3 books. Academician Yong Gan is a young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions at the national level. He was awarded the title of “National Advanced Worker” by the national “Eighth Five-Year Plan” for scientific and technological research and the “National Outstanding Contributor” of the National “Ninth Five-Year Plan”. He has presided over the research work of the National Eleventh Five-Year Major Support Project “New Generation Recyclable Steel Process Technology”, and served as the Chairman of the Steel Industry Technology Innovation Strategy Alliance and the National “Key New Materials R&D and Engineering” Major Engineering Program Expert Group The leader of the group, the chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology Advanced Materials Association, and the National Science and Technology Innovation 2030 Major Project - the team leader of the "Key New Materials R&D and Application".
Prof. Héctor D. Abruña, Cornell University, USA
Email: hda1@cornell.edu

Professor Abruña, Émile M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry is Director of the Energy Materials Center at Cornell (emc2). He completed his graduate studies with Royce W. Murray and Thomas J. Meyer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980 and was a postdoctoral research associate with Allen J. Bard at the University of Texas at Austin from 1980-81. After a brief stay at the University of Puerto Rico, he joined Cornell in 1983. He was Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology from 2004-2008.
Prof. Abruña has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Presidential Young Investigator Award, A. P. Sloan Fellowship, J. S. Guggenheim Fellowship and J. W. Fulbright Senior Fellow.He is the recipient of the Electrochemistry Award for the American Chemical Society (2008), and the C.N. Reilley Award in Electrochemistry for 2007.He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007 and Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry in 2008.He received the D. C. Grahame Award from the Electrochemical Society for 2009, the Faraday Medal of the Royal Society for 2011, the Brian Conway Prize from the International Society of Electrochemistry for 2013, was named Fellow of the Electrochemical Society in 2013 and in 2017 was the recipient of the Gold Medal of the International Society of Electrochemistry. Most recently, he was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. Prof. Abruña is the co-author of over 470 publications (h-index = 84) and has given over 600 invited lectures world-wide. He considers his 54 Ph.D. students and 65 Post-Doctoral associates as his most important professional achievement.
Title: Operando Methods for The Study of Energy Materials
Abstract: This presentation will deal with the development of operando methods for the study and characterization of fuel cell and battery materials. The presentation will begin with a brief overview of the methods employed. Particular emphasis will be placed on the use of X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray absorp6on spectroscopy (XAS) X-ray microscopy and tomography and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) under active potential control. The utility of these methods will be illustrated by selected examples including electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction and spectroscopic studies of Li/S batteries and Li metal deposition and dendritic growth. The use of operando TEM will be illustrated by studies of fuel cell catalyst degradation and coalescence and lithiation/de-lithiation dynamics of LiFePO4 via energy-filtered TEM. The presentation will conclude with an assessment of future directions.
Prof. Shigang Sun Xiamen University, China
Email: sgsun@xmu.edu.cn

Shi-Gang Sun obtained his Bachelor of Science from Xiamen University, China, in 1982, Doctorat d’Etat (Docteur ès Sciences Physiques) from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI), France, in 1986. After one year post-doctoral research in the Laboratoire d’Electrochimie Interfaciale du CNRS, France, he returned to China by the end of 1987, and served as associate professor and later full professor in 1991 at the Department of Chemistry of Xiamen University till now.
The main research interests of Prof. Sun include Electrocatalysis, Electrochemical Surface Science, Spectroelectrochemistry, Nanomaterials and Chemical power sources. He has published up to now about 500 SCI papers with peer citation over 13000, awared 14 innovation patents, co-authored 2 books entitled respectively “In-Situ Spectroscopic Studies of Adsorption at the Electrode and Electrocatalysis” (Elsevier, 2007) and “Electrocatalysis” (Chinese Chemical Engineering Press, 2014), and contributed by invitation 20 chapters to 18 scientific books.
Prof. Sun has been elected Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015, fellow of International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) in 2007, and fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in 2005. He has been awarded the “Brian Conway Prize” from International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), “Distinguished Contribution Award” from the Chinese Society of Electrochemistry, “Le prix Franco-Chinois 2014-2015” jointly from Société Chimique de France (SCF) and Chinese Chemical Society (CCS), and the State Natural Science Award (2nd Degree) of China. He is now editorial board member of Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Functional Materials Letters, ACS Energy Letters and Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry, serving as associate editor to Electrochimica Acta, Spectral Analysis and Spectroscopy, Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, Acta Chimica Sinica, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Electrochemistry.
Title: Structure Design and Control-Synthesis of Electrocatalysts for Fuel Cell Applications
Abstract: Electrocatalyst is the key in developing electrochemical energy conversion and storage, and in green chemistry of electrosynthesis using electrons as reagents. The activity, selectivity and stability of electrocatalysts depend strongly on both their bulk and surface structures. Therefore, the rational design and control-synthesis of electrocatalysts are the central subjects and are mainly based on a well understanding in structure-catalytic functionality, which was achieved in the past through employing metal single crystal planes as model catalysts. Since practical electrocatalysts often consist of nanosize particles substrated on conductive support materials, design and control-synthesis of nanosize catalysts present effective strategy to overcome the gap between single crystal model catalysts and practical catalysts. This communication describes results focusing on structure design and control-synthesis of both anode and cathode catalysts towards fuel cell applications.
(1) Tuning the surface atomic arrangement of well-defined metal nanocatalysts. Well-defined Pt, Pd, Rh and Cu nanocrystals enclosed by high-index facets have been successfully obtained by developing electrochemically shape-controlled synthesis, such as tetrahexahedral nanocrystals (THH NCs) enclosed with {hk0} high-index facets, trapezohedral nanocrystals (TPH NCs) with {hkk} high-index facets, triambic icosahedral nanocrystals (TIH NCs) with {hhl} high-index facets and hexoctahedral Pt NCs (HOH NCs) with {hkl} facets. As the high-index facets contain a high density of active centers, these NCs of high surface energy exhibit much higher electrocatalytic activity than commercial catalysts for small organic fuel oxidation reactions.
(2) Tuning the electronic structure of Pt- and Pd-based nanocatalysts. The electronic structure of NCs catalysts has been tuned either by surface decoration using foreign adatoms, or through alloying Pt and Pd with other metals. Different adatoms such as Bi, Ru and Au were used to decorate the THH Pt NCs, and both THH and TPH Pt-based alloy nanocatalysts were prepared by electrochemically shape-controlled method. The THH and TPH alloy NCs preserve the high-index facets while hold a synergy of electronic effect that enhances further the electrocatalytic activity.
(3) Synthesis of non-precious metal electrocatalysts with high ORR activity. Fe/N/C is a promising electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). By well-screening the precursors, optimizing the synthetic procedures and surface decoration, the resulted Fe/N/C exhibits high activity and stability in both acid and alkaline conditions. The results demonstrated that the Fe/N/C-SCN catalysts in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) can output a maximum power density
of 1.03 W cm2, and by using 2-aminothiazole as precursor the synthesized S-doped Fe/N/C catalyst with graphene nanosheets can yield a peak power density of 164 mW cm2 in an anion exchange membrane fuel cell (AEMFC).
Acknowledgements. The studies were supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0206500) and the National Science Foundation of China (21621091, 21573183, and 21703184)
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Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Prof. Suddhasatwa Basu, Director, CSIR-Institute of Minerals & Materials Technology, India
Prof. Alessandro Lavacchi, Istituto di Chimica dei Composti OrganoMetallici–ICCOM, Italy
Prof. Bob Slade, University of Surrey, UK
Prof. Changfeng Yan Guangzhou Institute of Energy, CAS, China
Prof. Chuan-Jian Zhong State University of New York at Binghamton, USA
Prof. Haitao Huang Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Prof. Haiyan Zhang Guangdong University of Technology, China
Prof. Hasuck Kim, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Korea
Prof. Huamin Zhang, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS, China
Prof. Jinli Qiao Donghua University, China
Prof. Kenichiro Ota Yokohama National University, Japan
Prof. Meilin Liu, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Prof. Panagiotis Tsiakaras University of Thessaly, Greece
Prof. Hui Yang Shanghai Institute of Advanced Study, CAS, China
Prof. Liqiang Mai Wuhan University of Technology, China
Prof. Qiang Zhang Tsinghua University, China
Prof. Shichun Mu Wuhan University of Technology, China
Prof. Shuangyin Wang Hunan University, China
Prof. Yanxia Jiang Xiamen University, China
Prof. Ru-Shi Liu, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Prof. San Ping Jiang Curtin University, Australia
Prof. Yunhui Huang Huazhong University of Science & Technology, China
Prof. Zhongfang Li Shandong University of Technology, China
Prof. Zidong Wei, Chongqing University, China
Prof. Zongping Shao Curtin University, Australia