Dr Penghui Yan

My main research expertise is in the field of renewable energy and catalysis, e.g. biomass conversion, biocrude upgrading, CO2 conversion, catalyst preparation and characterization.

In 2013, I graduated from the University of Chinese Academic of Sciences with a Physics Chemistry Master's degree on industrial catalysis with 3 years of research experience in hydrocracking of FT wax.

After that, I joined the Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum (Group) in 2013 as a chemical engineer and worked on the industrial projects of fast pyrolysis of coal to coke and tar, and co-pyrolysis of coal and biomass.

In 2014, I had been awarded a scholarship by the University of Newcastle, Australia to pursue my PhD degree in the Priority Research Centre for Energy. My main research focused on employing heterogeneous catalytic hydrodeoxygenation of biocrude in context of forming renewable energy resources (such as green diesel, petrol, and fine chemicals).

After I finished my Ph.D. in 2019, I continued the project of biocrude oil upgrading at the University of Newcastle, involving the upgrading of the biocrude oil to green fuel and value-added chemicals and commercialisation of the employed technologies, cooperated with Licella (Australia). In addition, I initiated the project of catalytic pyrolysis of biomass to BTEX in a single step.

In 2022, I join the University of Queensland and work on a project on catalytic conversion of CO2 to fuel.