Plenary Speaker
Biography
Prof. C.-J. Li received his Ph.D. at McGill University 1992 and was a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University (US). He was an Assistant (1994), Associate (1998) and Full Professor (2000) at Tulane University (US). Since 2003, he has been a Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Green Chemistry and E. B. Eddy Chair Professor at McGill University. He also serves as the Co-Director for Quebec’s FQRNT Center for Green Chemistry and Catalysis since 2009. He was a pioneer in using water as a green solvent and a leader in developing Green Chemistry for chemical synthesis. He received US NSF’s CAREER Award (1997), US Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2001), 2010 Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Award, 2015 R. U. Lemieux Award and 2018 Alfred Bader Award of the Canadian Chemical Society, the 2020 Catalysis Award and the 2022 CIC Medal of CIC, the 2021 Alexander von Humboldt Research Award, and the 2018 Killam Research Fellow of the Canadian Council of Arts among others. Dr. Li was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2012), the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) (2007), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2012), the Chemical Institute of Canada (2013), the American Chemical Society (ACS) (2015), the Chinese Chemical Society (2020), the American Chemical Society (ACS) (2013), as well as a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) (2016) and the European Academy of Sciences (2020).
Group III-Nitrides as Emerging Catalysts for Energy and Chemical Conversions
Chao-Jun LI
Abstract
Group III-nitrides, touted as the next-generation semiconductors beyond Si, have brought dramatic changes to our everyday life over the past three decades with revolutionary applications in LED lighting and power electronics. The use of III-nitride semiconductors as catalysts for chemical reactions has also attracted extensive interests recently. The activation of covalent bonds in organic compounds, exemplified by C-H, O=C=O, N N, O-H, etc., represents wide chemistry applications. From pharmaceuticals to clean energy, the manufacturing of almost every daily product can be impacted by the development of such bond activation. This talk will discuss some recent developments in the PI's laboratory on this topic.