SPEAKERS

Title:  – Electrifying Adsorption Processes: New Regeneration Strategies for CO₂ Capture and Water Harvesting

Short Bio:

–  Alexandre Ferreira is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), with recognized expertise in adsorption and cyclic separation processes. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from TU Delft and has held research positions at Imperial College London, the University of Amsterdam, and Delft University of Technology, where he was also involved in coordinating major European research initiatives.

His research focuses on cyclic adsorption and reaction processes, CO₂ capture, water harvesting, and advanced sorbent materials, with applications spanning chemical industry, energy, and environment. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, with an h-index of 37, and has received multiple distinctions for scientific excellence from FEUP. He has coordinated and participated in several competitive national and European projects, including Horizon Europe, EDF, and FCT-funded initiatives, and has led numerous industry collaborations with international partners.

Alexandre Ferreira is an active scientific leader in the adsorption community, serving as Chair of RIA 2024 and Co-Chair of FOA 2025. He is also deeply committed to teaching and academic service, having received repeated pedagogical excellence awards and holding several leadership roles within FEUP.

Short Bio

Dr. Rezaei is Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering Department at University of Miami. She obtained her PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Monash University in Australia and LTU in Sweden in 2011. Her research focus broadly lies at the interface of chemical, materials science and environmental engineering, and the overall goal of her research group is development of advanced adsorbent materials and adsorption processes for separation, purification, and storage applications.

Rezaei’s research has been supported by National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), department of Energy (DOE), and department of Defense (DOD). She is the author of over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and has received several awards including 2024 ACS ENFL Emerging Researcher. She is currently the Associate Editor of ACS Energy & Fuels journal.

Short Bio:

Dr. Gennady Gor is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). He earned his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from St. Petersburg State University in 2009 and conducted postdoctoral research at Rutgers University, Princeton University, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory before joining NJIT in 2016. Dr. Gor leads a research group that integrates molecular simulations, theory, and experiments to study the interactions of fluids with porous and soft materials. His current work spans confined liquids and electrolytes, atmospheric aerosols, and ultrasound propagation in porous media. He is the author of more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2020), and serves as Associate Editor of the journal Adsorption.

Short Bio:

Arvind Rajendran is a professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Alberta. After completing his PhD from ETH Zurich, Arvind began his academic career at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and has been with the University of Alberta since 2012. Arvind has co-authored over 100 papers and supervised more than 50 MSc, PhD, and postdoctoral researchers. His research group focuses on adsorptive gas separations, including applications in CO2 capture, direct air capture, oxygen purification, and helium separation. Arvind serves as the secretary of the International Adsorption Society (IAS).

Short Bio:

Benoit Coasne is an expert in the physics and physical chemistry of adsorption and transport in nanoporous materials. After his PhD in Paris (2003) and a 2 year postdoc in the USA (2003-2004), he was appointed CNRS researcher in Montpellier in 2005 and promoted CNRS Res. Director in 2015. During a 3 year visiting stay as joint Visiting Professor/CNRS Res. Director, he was leading a group on multiscale modeling of adsorption and transport in the CNRS/MIT lab at MIT in Boston (2012/15). He is currently affiliated in the Interdisciplinary Physics Lab in Grenoble. He is also (1) an Affiliate Member of the ILL Theory Group at Institut Laue Langevin (European Neutron Source) where he is in charge of Soft Matter Theory, (2) Deputy Director of the LabCom CARMEN2 on materials for new energies, and (3) Adjunct Professor at Univ. Maryland in the USA.  He is the chair of the Conference MATERIAUX 2026 (1500 people in Grenoble, Nov. 2026). Benoit Coasne was Cofounder and first President of the French Adsorption Society. He is now President of the Chemical Physics Division (SFP/SCF) and President of the FRA/GER adsorption initiative. Benoit Coasne’s research on adsorption, confinement, and phase transitions in porous materials covers a broad range of confined systems from atoms, molecular fluids, electrolytes/ionic liquids, and solids. He published ~240 papers including 3 Nature Materials, 6 Nature Comm., 2 Chem. Soc. Rev, 1 Chem. Rec., 2 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 3 ACS Nano, 3 Phys. Rev. Lett., 3 J. Phys. Chem. Lett.

Short Bio:

Dr. Sibele Berenice Castellã Pergher is a Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil, where she works in the Petroleum Chemistry undergraduate program and in the Graduate Programs in Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering. 

Her research focuses on the synthesis of catalysts and advanced porous materials, including zeolites, clays, mesoporous, lamellar, pillared, and delaminated materials, as well as adsorption and catalytic processes. She is the founder and coordinator of the Molecular Sieves Laboratory (LABPEMOL).

Dr. Pergher has held several leadership positions, including Director of the Brazilian Catalysis Society (SBCat) and Vice President for Research at UFRN. She is actively involved in the international catalysis community, serving on the Synthesis Commission and Board of the International Zeolite Association (IZA), and representing Brazil in the Ibero-American Federation of Catalysis (FISOCAT) and in the International Association of Catalysis Societies (IACS).

Short Bio:

Title: Sorbents and process intensification to advance in CO2 capture and utilization 

Full Professor in Chemical Engineering at Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC, Brazil) since 2012 and faculty member of Chemical Engineering Department since 1993. She currently holds the position of vice-president of UFC (2023-2027). Research grantee level A at CNPq, with h-index 47 (Scopus). Her present research interests include CCUS and hydrogen storage. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Engineering (Wiley), Adsorption and the Chemical Engineering Journal. She is a Fellow of the International Adsorption Society (IAS), member of its board of directors and member of the National Engineering Academy (ANE). For the last ten years, she has been actively engaged in gender balance initiatives in higher education, particularly in STEM.

Short Bio:

Matthias Thommes is currently full Professor and Head, Institute of Separation Science and Technology at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and holds also an Honorary Professorship at University of Edinburgh, U.K..

Matthias received his Doctorate in Physical Chemistry in 1993 at the Technical University Berlin (1992/93). From 1992 to 1995 he was a project scientist for a microgravity experiment on critical adsorption, which was carried out on the EURECA mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). In 1996, he moved to the USA as an ESA fellow and postdoctoral research associate at the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland at College Park, USA. In 1998, he joined Quantachrome and was Scientific Drector of Quantachrome Corp. (Boynton Beach, FL, USA ) from 2001 until June 2018. Since July 1st 2018, he is full Professor and Head of the Institute for Separation Science and Technology, at FAU and served also as Head of Department Department of the Chemical and Bioengineering department from 2021-2023. In addition, he holds prestigious leadership positions in a number of authoritative bodies associated with adsorption and characterization science

Matthias Thommes’ work involves investigating the adsorption, phase and wetting behavior of fluids in nanoporous materials, developing methodologies for a targeted  nanoporous material characterization for various application including separation, catalysis, gas-and energy storage. 

His research forms a link between the adsorption properties of adsorbents and their characteristics with the development of nanoporous materials and their use in various processes. Matthias has an h-index of 67 with 56800+ citations (Google Scholar, May 2026)

Matthias Thommes has received numerous recognitions for his work, among them for instance  the  induction as a Fellow of the International Adsorption Society (IAS) in 2021, a dedicated  Honorary Session in his name at the 2024 AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) annual meeting (San Diego) for his outstanding achievements in the area of fundamentals of adsorption and porous materials characterization, and most recently the prestigious Clarence (Larry) Gerhold Award, one of the most significant accolades in the field of chemical separations technologies.