Jieshan Qiu, Cheung-Kong Distinguished Professor of Carbon Science and Chemical Engineering at Beijing University of Chemical Technology, China. His research encompasses both fundamental and applied aspects of carbon materials and science, with a focus on the methodologies of producing carbon materials for energy storage and conversion, catalysis, and environment protection. He has published 930+ papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Mater., Adv. Mater., Adv. Funct. Mater., Adv. Energy Mater., Energy Environ. Sci., PNAS, Nature Commun., ACS Nano, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Joule, Matter, Chem, etc., with citations 64300+ times and h-index of 127(google scholar), and his work has been featured on 70 covers of international journals. He has been invited to give 160+ plenary/invited/keynote talks in conferences and at universities and research institutes. He has filed 170+ Chinese and International patents. He has been honored with 30+ prestigious awards and prizes including the First-class award for fundamental research and industrialization technologies from the Education Ministry of China and Liaoning Province. He is a highly cited researcher by Clarivate Analytics from 2018 to 2023 and by Elsevier from 2019 to 2023. Right now, he is the Associate Editor of Battery Energy (Wiley) and Chemical Engineering Science (Elsevier).

Elza Bontempi has a permanent position at the University of Brescia where she is currently a Full Professor teaching courses in Fundamentals of Chemistry for the Technologies. She is responsible for the research line concerning eco-materials at the Chemistry for Technologies Laboratory. She has been responsible for several national and international research projects, developing new technologies and new sustainable materials, coming from waste and by-products. In recent years, his scientific activity has focused on the recovery of critical raw materials in the field of circular economy, such as lithium and cobalt, from exhausted batteries. She is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and several patents in the field of material recovery. She is included in the list of Unstoppable Women (the 1000 women that are changing Italy) and the Top Italian Scientists in the field of natural and environmental sciences and in the 100 experts list.

Dr. Frank Shengzhong Liu received his PhD from Northwestern University, USA in 1992. He is an RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) Fellow. His H-index is 110 and i10-index over 350.Upon completing his postdoctoral research at Argonne National Laboratory in 1994, he joined high-tech industrial research, most notably on solar cells with Solarex/BP Solar and United Solar Ovonic. Professor Liu’s research focus includes nanomaterials, thin film materials, photovoltaic materials and solar cells. His major outcome in basic research has been published in scientific journals, including Science, Nature, Joule, Matter, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, Energy & Environ. Sci., etc., 80 of them being enlisted in ESI’s "most cited paper" and “hot paper” lists. Many of his major inventions and patents have been converted into commercial technology and products. In 2011, he accepted a full-time professorship by Shaanxi Normal University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2012. He is now the director of Shaanxi Engineering Lab for Advanced Energy Technology, Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Advanced Energy Devices and Institute for Advanced Energy Materials, Shaanxi Normal University and Associate Director of Solar Energy Department, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy. He serves as an associate Editor for NanoSelect. He is also an Editorial Board Member for Advanced Science, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, J. Energy Chemistry and Scientific Report. He is selected as the top 1% most highly cited author by RSC and Clarivate Analytics. He is also among the “Top 2% Scientists Worldwide 2022”.