Prof. Dr. Fernando Rubiera
Institute of Carbon Science and Technology, INCAR-CSIC, Spain

Prof Fernando Rubiera obtained his PhD in Chemistry from Oviedo University in 1991. With a Human Capital and Mobility grant from the EU, he joined British Coal (TSRE, Bretby) and then Nottingham University, from 1992 to 1995. Then, he started as a Tenured Scientist at the former National Coal Institute (now Institute of Carbon Science and Technology, INCAR-CSIC). Currently, he is a Research Professor and has been Director of the INCAR since 2015. He also acts as vice president of the Spanish Technology Platform, PTECO₂, where he is in charge of the working groups of the Capture and Utilisation of CO₂. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Bio-Energy section of the Energies journal. His research lines have included the reduction of SO₂ and NO_x during coal combustion, the optimisation of fine coal cleaning processes, the co-utilisation of coal and biomass in combustion and gasification systems, the capture of CO₂ and the catalytic production of hydrogen from biomass.

Dr. Covadonga Pevida
Institute of Carbon Science and Technology, INCAR-CSIC, Spain

Dr. Covadonga Pevida is a Research Scientist at the Institute of Carbon Science and Technology, INCAR-CSIC, in Spain. With a MEng in Chemical Engineering from the University of Oviedo, she completed her PhD on the heterogeneous reduction of nitrogen oxides during coal combustion in 2004. She was awarded the Young PhD Researcher Award from the Spanish Carbon Group in 2005. She did two postdoctoral stays: at IRCELyon (CNRS-Université de Lyon 1) and the University of Nottingham. In 2017, she was a visiting researcher at the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS), Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh). Her current research interests focus on biomass utilization for energy and value-added products. In particular, the production of H₂ from renewable bioresources and the development of solid sorbents for gas separation (e.g., CO₂ capture) are her two main research lines.

Dr. Chungen Yin
Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark

Chungen Yin obtained his PhD in Energy Engineering from Zhejiang University in 1998. From 1998 to 2004, he worked at Zhejiang University as an Assistant Professor, in Ecole des Mines de Douai as a Postdoc and in Aalborg University as an Assistant Professor, respectively. Since 2004, he has been an Associate Professor in Aalborg University. His research and teaching interests are mainly in the area of thermal/fluids engineering. He has extensive R&D experience and competence in the thermochemical conversion of biomass for heat, power and fuel production and related CFD (computational fluid dynamics) modelling. He is among the world's 100,000 top-scientists across all fields, according to the career-long citation impact (https://dx.doi.org/10.17632/btchxktzyw.2)

Dr. Ondřej Mašek
UK Biochar Research Centre, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, UK

For the past eighteen years, my research has been dedicated to various aspects of the thermo-chemical conversion of biomass and fossil resources to added-value products, e.g., materials, electricity, heat, chemicals or fuels, and associated issues related to efficiency, sustainability and GHG emissions. In 2009, I joined the University of Edinburgh and together with colleagues, co-founded the UK Biochar Research Centre at the School of Geosciences. My research has since then been focused on the conversion of biomass to biochar and co-products for the purpose of atmospheric carbon sequestration, and adaptation to climate change (tackling environmental issues and making agricultural production more efficient and resilient). My research has initially focused on developing a fundamental understanding in the area of biochar production, and together with colleagues working on soil science and social science, develops a more general understanding of feedstock, processing and soil systems.

More recently, building on this knowledge and data, my research has expanded towards targeted biochar products (engineered biochar) and informed selection, i.e., a more sophisticated method for biochar production and application, allowing higher desired impacts with lower inputs. This is an important direction of research and a critical step to facilitate the wider uptake and adaptation of sustainable biochar practices as a strategy for climate change mitigation and adaptation. One outcome/impact of this research to date has been the formation of a start-up company “Carbogenics” focussed on the development and production of biochar-based additives for the anaerobic digestion industry.

Most recently, I started to work on the interaction between different biochar and other biomass processing technologies, to achieve the most effective solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation, but also on the development of novel characterisation and analysis methods for biochar and pyrolysis product characterisation (e.g., synchrotron-based 4D x-ray -tomography, FT-ICR-MS ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry, and planar optodes for the microscale in situ dynamic observation of chemical properties and interactions between biochar and environment). Extensive work on synchrotron-based 4D x-ray -tomography since 2015 has yielded novel insights into the internal structure of biomass and the changes it undergoes during heating.