Nanoscale science and technology are now profoundly reshaping all sectors of industry: in energy and the environment; health and medicine; and communications, computing and security. Sydney Nano is developing up to five Grand Challenge projects to build our future strategic priorities in the areas of research strategy, university-wide strategy, governance and management, external engagement, and outreach and education and training. The Grand Challenge of Sustainable Manufacturing will bring together expertise across our University and beyond to focus on extending and deepening our knowledge of the nanocatalysts and CO2 conversion. Together, we are tackling some of the most challenging problems that humanity faces: inventing new catalysis for renewable energy, CO2 conversion to chemicals and fuels, CO2 reduction by minimizing coke generation during the reaction, and taking inspiration from nature to develop completely new catalysts engineered at the nanoscale. Impacts from ZeroCO2 technology will be felt far beyond science and engineering. That is why Sydney Nano reaches across our academic community into the arts and social sciences, business, law, architecture and design. The CO2 grand challenge team also has strong partnerships with industry and research institutions in Australia and across the world.
Associate Professor Jun Huang received his PhD from University of Stuttgart, Germany in 2008 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA and ETH Zürich, Switzerland, respectively. He was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of Sydney in 2010 and Senior Lecturer in 2013 and Associate Professor in 2016. He has made significant contributions to develop emerging catalytic technologies for more attractive, practical, and cleaner processes using in situ spectroscopic techniques, coupled with new catalyst design and innovative reaction engineering. Jun has published over 90 journal publications in high-rank Catalysis Journals as well as in Chem/Science Journals. He has been awarded over AU$ 6m research grants and many prestigious awards including Grand Challenge Champion (2019), Sydney Accelerator Fellowship Awards (2018), USYD-UC Davis Partnership Collaboration Award (2018), The Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence Outstanding Research (2017), Australia-China Low-Emissions Coal Partnership Future leader (2013), France-Australia Science Innovation Collaboration program Early Career Fellowships (2012). Jun is a member of the Editorial Board of Materials Today Sustainability and ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering as well as the guest editor of ChemCatChem for the yearly special issue of Spectroscopy and Microscopy for Catalysis.