Plenary speakers

Prof. Suresh C. Pillai

Atlantic Technological University Sligo- Ireland
Prof. Suresh C. Pillai is Director of Health and Bio-Medical (HEAL) Centre & Head of Nanotechnology and Bio-Engineering Research Group at Atlantic Technological University, ATU Sligo, Ireland. He completed PhD in the area of Materials Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He then performed his postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA. Upon completion of this appointment, he returned to Trinity College Dublin as a Research Fellow before joining CREST-DIT as a Senior Scientist in April 2004. He joined Atlantic Technological University in 2013 as a senior lecturer in nanotechnology and currently leads the Nanotechnology and Bio-Engineering Research Group. He is the recipient of the ‘Boyle-Higgins Award-2019’ from the Institute of Chemistry Ireland. He also received the Linus Pauling Lecture Award 2020 from Mahatma Gandhi University. He is an elected fellow of the UK’s Royal Microscopical Society (FRMS) and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM). He completed an executive MBA from Dublin City University, in 2009. He is the executive editor of the journal Results in Engineering (Elsevier; IF 5.50) and an executive editor of the Chemical Engineering Journal (Elsevier; IF 13.3). He is also the Editorial Board Member for the journal Applied Catalysis B (Elsevier)

Prof. Despo Fatta-Kassinos

University of Cyprus - Cyprus

Prof. Despo Fatta-Kassinos is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Cyprus. She served as the founding director of Nireas International Water Research Center from 2019 until 2022. She holds a Diploma and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). Since 2003, she has attracted ca. 14.4 million € as project coordinator/principal investigator. She is the Chair of the Advisory Board of the African Center of Excellence in Water and Environment Research in Nigeria, and a member of the advisory boards of various water research centers in Europe. She is a founding member of the International Ph.D. School on Advanced Oxidation Processes and member of its Scientific and Management Committee. She has also served as the Chair of the Scientific and Technological Advisory Board of the European JPI ‘Water Challenges for a Changing World’ (2015-2019). She is a Highly Cited Researcher since 2018 (ranked in the top 1% by citations). She is Executive Editor of the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, and Editor of Water Research, Elsevier. Among other prizes, in 2012 she received the distinguished national research award by the Research and Innovation Foundation of Cyprus, while in 2022 the Noack Laboratorien Outstanding Science Career Award by The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). In 2024, she became the first female scientist from Cyprus elected to the Academy of Europe, in the Class of Exact Sciences, in the Section of Engineering.

Prof. Dr. Sixto Malato Rodríguez

Almeria Solar Platform- Spain

Prof. Dr. Sixto Malato Rodríguez (Orcid.org) works at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria (PSA-CIEMAT) since 1990. He is Director or Co-Director of Joint Research Center (Univ. Almería-CIEMAT) of R&D in Solar Energy (CIESOL).
Director of Plataforma Solar de Almeria (www.psa.es). 2012-2017. Some of his milestones have been: i) fundamentals for design of solar photoreactors; ii) methodology for combination of photocatalysis with aerobic treatments; iii) combination of membrane processes with advanced oxidation, iv) advanced treatment methods for the removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) from urban wastewater; and v) production of hydrogen using solar photoreactors. He was onvolved in EU R&D projects linked to the Solar Treatment of Water, namely 31 International, 37 National R&D Projects and different Contracts with Private Companies.
He is author of 1 book and co-author of 18 books as well as >60 chapters in others. He has also co-authored more than 310 publications in indexed international journals (>200 in Q1), and more than 370 contributions to different International Congresses and 5 patents. He has given seminars at universities around the world, from Argentina or Brazil, to China or Thailand. In the last 5 years, he has given more than 20 plenary lectures or “keynotes” at International Congresses. He has directed 20 PhD Thesis. >28000 cites, h-index: 88 (SCOPUS).
The Jury’s Grand Prix of “European Grand Prix for Innovation Awards”. 11 December 2004, Mónaco. http://www.european-grandprix.com/index_en.htm.
Jaime I Price (Most important in science in Spain) in Environmental Protection, 2011. http://www.fvea.es/medioambiente.html.

Keynote speakers

Prof. Dionissios Mantzavinos

University of Patras -Greece

Prof. Dionissios Mantzavinos is Professor of Wastewater Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, Greece, while he is currently serving as Vice Rector of Academic and International Affairs. He holds a Diploma (integrated master equivalent) (1991) in chemical engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and M.Sc. (1993) and Ph.D. (1996) degrees in chemical engineering from Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, UK. After a short spell as a Research Fellow and Lecturer at Edinburgh and Leeds Universities, respectively, he returned home to take up an academic position as an Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Crete before his move to University of Patras in 2013. His research interests focus on water/wastewater treatment by advanced oxidation technologies, as well as on environmental catalysis. Prof. Mantzavinos is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology since 2017. Information about his publication record can be found at this link.

Prof. Giovanni Palmisano

Khalifa University- United Arab Emirates

Prof. Giovanni Palmisano joined Masdar Institute, later merged into Khalifa University in 2014, and currently he is a Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He works mostly in the field of photocatalysis applied to energy, materials functionalization, water, and environment. He is the co-author of ca. 150 highly cited journal papers, 9 patents, 7 books and 9 book chapters. He has been recipient of internal and external funding regularly, and he has received a number of awards during his career. He is an Executive Editor of the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering where he formerly had associate editor duties. Since 2023 he has been deputy director and theme lead of the Research and Innovation Center on CO2 and Hydrogen (RICH) at Khalifa University. He has been main advisor of 9 Ph.D. students and 5 M.Sc. students, one of whom won the outstanding thesis award. He has also been supervisor of a number of research engineers and postdoctoral researchers. Dr. Palmisano regularly serves in international committees of science foundations and he has delivered several invited presentations, key-note lectures and plenary lectures in well renowned conferences.

Prof. Manuel Andrés Rodrigo Rodrigo

University of Castile-La Mancha- Spain

Prof. Manuel Andrés Rodrigo Rodrigo studied Industrial Chemistry at the University of Valencia, where he was graduated at the top of his class in 1993. He obtained a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Valencia in 1997. In 1997, he joined University of Castilla La Mancha (UCLM) as Assistant Professor and, casually, he began researching on electrochemical technology, a new topic in which no one else was specialized and no facilities were available. In 1999, he did a first postdoctoral training in the EPFL (Switzerland), where he was trained in electrochemical technology and he started working in electrolysis with boron doped diamond electrodes, one of the key topics in his research. In 2000, he was appointed as Associate Professor and in 2009, he was promoted to Full Professor in Chemical Engineering at the UCLM. He has been working to consolidate a highly competitive and internationally minded research team, focused on the development of new and value-added applications of electrochemical engineering, with expertise in the frontiers between electrochemistry-energy and electrochemistry-environment and with a relevant transfer of knowledge to the industry. During these years, he has kept a strong consultant collaboration with many companies in energy and environmental engineering, and several private-financed projects. Prof. Rodrigo has been invited Professor at the universities Paris Est Marne la Vallée (France) and Politécnica de Valencia. In 2020 he received the Trajectory Award of the Group of Chemical Engineering of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry and in 2022 the Research and Innovation Award of the Regional Government of Castilla la Mancha in Architecture and Engineering. Hi is (co)-author of more than 600 papers in indexed journals (h-index 83, SCOPUS) and 6 patents. He has presented more than 400 communications (more than half of them as oral communications) in national and international meetings including more than 50 keynotes. Prof Rodrigo has led or is now leading 15 public financed research projects (2255.33 k€), 3 public financed infrastructure projects (819.91 k€), 20 private financed research contracts (1105.71 k€) and collaborated or is collaborating in other 25 public financed research projects (4115.19 k€), 12 public financed infrastructure projects (2221.29 k€) and 20 private financed projects (712.00 k€). Prof Rodrigo was editor of the Journal of Electrochemical Science and Engineering from 2011 to 2016 and, currently, he belongs to the Editorial Board of Journals such as Separation & Purification Technology, Journal of Hazardous Materials and Journal of Applied Electrochemistry.

Prof. Ricardo Torres-Palma

University of Antioquia- Colombia
Prof. Ricardo Torres-Palma is graduated in Chemistry and Master in Chemistry (2001) by Universidad del Valle, Colombia. From 1999-2002, he was awarded with the Scholarship for Foreign Students at the EPFL (Switzerland). In 2007, he received the PhD in Chemistry from the University of Savoie in France. From 2009-2011, he was post-doctoral re-searcher in Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto (Canada). He is leader of the Research Group on Environmental Remediation and Biocatalysis at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of Universidad de Antioquia and Editor of the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research (Springer) and Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering. He has dedicated his scientific life to the understanding and development of water treatment systems through electrochemical, photochemical, and sonochemical processes, among others. He has published more than 160 articles in indexed journals and has close than 6200 citations (h-index: 48, in Scopus). He has published six book chapters, and the results of his research have been presented in around 120 congresses and symposiums around the world. He acts as an expert evaluator of the National Accreditation Council of the Ministry of National Education in Colombia, as well as in more than 20 international peer-reviewed journals. He has been also a Guest Editor for Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Journal of Hazardous Materials and ECS Transactions. He has been part of the scientific committee of renowned international congresses such as European Conference on Environmental Applications of Advanced Oxidation Processes, Asia- Oceania Sonochemical Society Conference, Iberoamerican Conference on Advanced Oxidation Technologies, and European meeting on Solar Chemistry and Photocatalysis: Environmental Applications. He has been President of the Electrochemical Society in Colombia and awarded as the most outstanding Afro-Colombian of the decade in the academy. Currently, he is also Coordinator of the International PhD School on AOPs for Latin-American countries. He was included in a list of the most-cited scientists in the world released by Stanford University in 2023.

Prof. Raf Dewil

University of Leuven-Belgium

Prof. Raf Dewil is a full professor of Chemical Engineering at KU Leuven (University of Leuven) and a visiting professor in the Engineering Science Department at the University of Oxford. His research interests focus primarily on resource recovery and the degradation of hazardous organic components from water and wastewater. In (waste) water treatment, he places particular emphasis on the application of photochemical and electrochemical advanced oxidation and reduction processes, including the application of novel photo- and electrocatalytic materials.
Prof. Dewil has co-authored over 250 papers in international journals, leading to over 19,000 citations and his h-index is currently at 61, according to Google Scholar (Sept.2024). He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Management and is a member of the editorial board for various international journals such as Chemical Engineering Journal and Renewable Energy

Prof. Cesar Pulgarín

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - Switzerland

Prof. Cesar Pulgarín is Emeritus Professor from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland (Cesar Pulgarín). He earned bachelor degree in chemistry from Lausanne University, Master in environmental chemistry from Geneva University, Ph.D. in synthesis bio-inspired of natural substances from Neuchâtel University and two post-doc positions in electrochemistry and environmental biotechnology in EPFL. He was the leader of the Advanced Oxidation Processes Group (EPFL) active in photochemical, electrochemical, and ultrasonic processes (and their combinations with biological system) to degrade chemical and microbiological pollutants in water. He developed self-disinfecting surfaces under visible light. He has more than 292 publications in referred journals and 20 chapters of books (H index 75 in Scopus).
Prof. Pulgarin has several seminal papers related to mechanisms of advanced oxidation processes in water disinfection and detoxification and is the 1st to 4th world most cited author in some of these research fields. Contributed to twenty international research projects and the development of two patents and two start-ups. Applied Catalysis B (IF: 22.1), the first ranked of 227 journals in his field, devoted in 2020 a special issue in his honor as he was at that moment the 4th most published author in this journal.