BIO of Vasant Kumar

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Dr. Kumar has over 20 years of research experience in electrochemistry, energy devices, materials chemistry synthesis and sensors. Dr Kumar has been conducting world leading research in materials chemistry reactions at the cutting edge of new applications within an ecological calculus. His research has helped advance new knowledge in materials chemistry with innovations in ionic sensors, batteries, fuel cells, electrolytic cells and photocatalytic-reactors with examples described below.
Dr Kumar has developed a new environmentally clean-process for recovering electro-active paste material from automotive-batteries for making new batteries (paste-to-paste recovery). Several other research centres have followed this lead by setting up collaborative research with Cambridge. A business-plan based on this work was given the first Armourers & Brasiers Venture Prize in 2008, followed by global industrial interest.
Dr Kumar has developed the use of nano-carbon scaffolds infiltrated with sulphur in order to fabricate new Li-S batteries with energy densities that are 100% higher than the best Li-ion batteries with improved cycle-life, approaching 1000 cycles thus potentially overcoming an outstanding problem that has hampered progress for several decades. This project received various innovation awards including Dow Sustainability Student Innovation Grand Award in 2013. The patented technology has been licensed to a company in China.
Dr Kumar has advanced a new metal-oxide photocatalyst composite material capable of absorbing both uv-visible light with reaction rates that are up to 2-orders of magnitude faster for disinfecting water and for destroying pollutants in air. A spin-out company (CamSES Ltd) has been set up to exploit the findings. A grant has been obtained from IEEE(USA) to design a prototype for use in flood-hit regions. This project received the DOW Sustainability Innovation Students' Runners-up prize in 2012.
He has published over 200 papers, 10 patents, 4 Chapters in Handbooks and 1 edited book (High energy density Li batteries, Wiley-VCH 2010). He has supervised over 30 PhD students, 20 post-doctoral researchers, 15 visiting students and hosted 8 visiting professors. He is the Founder and Director of several start-up companies -Solutions4Hydrogen Ltd in Pune, India; Environmental Monitoring & Control Ltd, Stafford, UK; Cambridge Solar Energy Solutions Ltd, Cambridge UK- for furthering his research into industrial applications in the areas of energy and environment. He has worked very closely with industry and research organizations and has been successful in transferring technology to industry.He was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Engineering by University of Malaysia in 2011 and Honorary Professorships in Hebei University and HUST, Wuhan in China. In 2014 he was awarded the Kroll Medal by the Institute of Materials, Mineral and Mining (IOM3) in London for industrial innovation based on scientific research. Dr Kumar is the Editor of Trans IMM C published by Maney on behalf of IOM3.

BIO of Katerina Aifantis

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Katerina E. Aifantis began her research with US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and obtained her Master's from the University of Cambridge and her PhD from the University of Groningen at the age of 21, becoming the youngest PhD holder in the history of The Netherlands. In 2008, she became the youngest recipient (at 24) of the European Research Council Grant to set up her on lab at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for studying nanomaterials and their applications in energy and biology. In 2013 she joined the University of Arizona as an associate professor and in 2017 she moved to the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of the University of Florida. Through funding from the Basic Energy Sciences Office of the Department of Energy she tries to understand the effect of interfaces in materials behavior. In addition to basic science questions, she uses her theoretical and experimental insight into the materials mechanical behavior to predict the most promising materials systems that can be used in various applications, ranging from next generation electrodes for Li-ion batteries, to bone regeneration scaffolds and bioacompatible electrodes for deep brain stimulation.