On the afternoon of November 28, 2025, at the invitation of Professor Zhao Yufei and Associate Professor Bai Xiaojue from the research group, Professor Ekaterina Kravchenko from Southern Federal University (Russia), Professor Molly Meng-Jung Li from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Professor Lei Qiong from Macau University of Science and Technology delivered academic lectures to teachers and students of our university in Conference Room 307B of the High-End Precision Building. The lectures focused on cutting-edge fields such as sustainable materials, carbon-neutral catalysis, and electrocatalytic conversion.
In her lecture titled "Sustainable Pathways for Adsorbent Production from Biomass Waste: From Waste to Resource", Professor Kravchenko systematically introduced pyrolysis and hydrothermal carbonization technologies, physical characterization of adsorbents, applications in agricultural and construction fields, as well as machine learning-based performance prediction and life cycle carbon footprint analysis.
Professor Molly Li focused on "Multiphase Catalysis for Carbon-Neutral Energy Cycles", deeply discussing the key role of hydrogen carriers (such as ammonia and methanol) in sustainable energy transition. She shared the latest progress in the design of high-efficiency thermal catalysts, the mechanism of strong metal-support interaction, and in-situ characterization technologies, and demonstrated the proof-of-concept research on the integration of liquid hydrogen carriers and fuel cells.
Professor Lei Qiong, with her lecture titled "Electrocatalytic Conversion of Energy Carrier Molecules and Operando-Assisted Mechanism Studies", introduced her innovative achievements in the fields of CO₂ reduction and urea electrosynthesis. She emphasized strategies to improve reaction activity and selectivity through rational catalyst design, and showed how to use the Operando characterization platform to reveal the real active species and dynamic structural evolution of catalysts under working conditions.
The lectures delivered by the three professors were rich in content and cutting-edge in perspective, sparking enthusiastic discussions among teachers and students present. The audience actively raised questions on topics such as biomass resource utilization, hydrogen energy storage and conversion, and electrocatalytic mechanism research, creating a strong academic atmosphere on site.
Introduction to the Lecturers：
Professor Ekaterina Kravchenko is currently the Director of the Sustainable Materials Laboratory at Southern Federal University (Russia), and also holds editorial positions in multiple top international (Q1) journals, including Associate Editor of 《Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering》, Editor of 《Resources, Environment and Sustainability》, and Early Career Editorial Board Member of journals such as 《Science of the Total Environment》, 《Carbon Neutrality》, and 《Journal of Hazardous Materials》. Her research focuses on cutting-edge fields such as intelligent sustainable building materials, carbon neutrality technologies, climate change adaptation, and the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in infrastructure. To date, she has published 41 papers in high-level journals, including 30 first-author or corresponding-author papers, 7 of which are in the top 1–2% of Scopus journals; she has published 4 monographs, presided over a number of international cooperation and industrial projects as the principal investigator, and has obtained a total of more than 432,000 US dollars in competitive research funding.
Professor Molly Meng-Jung Li is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Physics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and holds a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Oxford. She has long been committed to the research of clean energy catalytic materials and systems, including cutting-edge directions such as ammonia energy conversion, multi-fuel reforming, and CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol. She has published a number of representative papers in top journals such as Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, Angewandte Chemie, and Advanced Materials, and has won many honors such as the Silver Medal of the Geneva International Invention Exhibition and the Global Innovation Award. As the project leader, she has presided over a number of research projects such as the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Fund and the Green Technology Fund, with a total of more than 18 million Hong Kong dollars in competitive research funding, and holds a number of international patents.
Professor Lei Qiong is currently an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Materials Science and Engineering of Macau University of Science and Technology and holds a PhD in Chemistry from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). Her research focuses on electrocatalytic energy conversion and pollutant resource utilization, covering multi-electron reaction systems such as CO₂ reduction and nitrate co-reduction. She is committed to developing high-efficiency catalysts and in-situ characterization technologies to realize the conversion of waste small molecules into high-value-added chemicals. She has published more than 30 papers in high-level journals such as Nature Communications, JACS, Angewandte Chemie, and ACS Nano, many of which have been selected as highly cited papers. She presides over one project of the Macao Science and Technology Development Fund and has international research experience in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and other regions.
