Prof. Christopher Hardacre has been appointed the new director of the UK Catalysis Hub going forward into Phase II.
Chris is the Vice Dean and Head of School of Natural Sciences at University of Manchester. His research group focuses on ionic liquids and catalysis, with relevant projects in biomass processing, energy, fine chemical synthesis, plasma catalysis for emission control and clean hydrogen production. Much of the work has centred around developing new catalytic processes as well as investigating the structure-activity/selectivity relationships using in-situ spectroscopic and structural methods. He has published 450+ papers (H-index 71) and 11 patents. His work is funded by EPSRC, EC, TSB, RS, industry and local government, attracting >£15m since 2003. He was part of the Queen’s University Ionic Liquid Laboratory which attained the Queen’s Award for Further and Higher Education (2006). Awarded the RSC Teamwork in Innovation (2005), the USA 2008 R&D 100 award and the IChemE Andrew Medal for Catalysis (2013).
“Catalytic research in the UK is going from strength to strength and it is a reflection of this quality that has resulted in the funding of the second phase of the UK Catalysis Hub. One of the key aspects of the next phase of the Hub is our engagement with industry and over the next 5 years activities associated with further developing these will be promoted. It is great to see new and existing Hub researchers involved in the new research plans and we look forward to growing this further in the future.”
~ Professor Christopher Hardacre, Director