Biofuels

Michele Aresta

Professor
University of Bath
UK

Biography

Dr. Michele Aresta, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Bari-IT until 2012, held the Isaac Manasseh Meyer Chair Professorship 2013-2016 at the NUS Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Singapore and chairs the Scientific Committee of the Interuniversity Consortium on Chemical Reactivity and Catalysis-ICCDU, Italy. Since 2015 he is David Parkin Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath, UK.

Research Area

His main research interests are chemistry of small molecules, catalysis, carbon recycling, utilization of CO2 in the synthesis of chemicals, conversion of waste biomass into chemicals and fuels, photochemical reactions. He discovered the first transition metal complex bearing co-ordinated CO2 and demonstrated that the reduction of co-ordinated CO2 to CO was easily achieved at room temperature, while free gaseous CO2 requires either high temperature (>1000 K) or high energy radiations (< 160 nm). He is author of over 250 peer reviewed papers, among which the unique invited review article ”My Journey in the CO2-Chemistry Wonderland”, Coordination Chemical Reviews, 2016 in which he describes his history with CO2 reactions. He has authored numerous reviews articles and book chapters.