Junwang Tang, MAE, FRSC and FIMMM, is the Founding Director of Industrial Catalysis Center, and Carbon Neutrality Chair Professor of Materials Chemistry and Catalysis at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University and Visiting Professor at
University College London (UCL). He also served as the Director of the University Material Hub at UCL (2016–2019).
Education
Tang was educated at
Northeastern University (China), where he received his BSc degree in chemistry in 1995. Then he attended the Institute of Metal Research in China and was awarded a MSc degree in inorganic materials in 1998. In 2001, Tang was awarded a PhD in
physical chemistry with research on heterogeneous catalytic conversion of NO to N2, supervised by
Tao Zhang at
Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), China[2]
In 2009, Tang was appointed as a lecturer in energy (permanent position) in Department of Chemical Engineering at
University College London, then promoted to a senior lecturer in 2011, a readership in 2014 and finally a full professor of materials chemistry and engineering in 2017. During this period, he was also appointed as the director of University Materials Hub.[5] In 2022, Tang moved from UCL to Tsinghua University.
Tang is a member of the Academy of Europe /
Academia Europaea,[6] a
Royal SocietyLeverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow,[7] a Fellow of
European Academy of Sciences,[8] a Fellow of
Royal Society of Chemistry. He also sits on the editorial board of four international journals, e.g. editor of Applied Catalysis B : Environmental, editor-in-chief of Journal of Advanced Chemical Engineering, associate editor of Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering and associate editor of Chin Journal of Catalysis, as well as a member of the committees of the RSC Chemical Nanoscience & Nanotechnology. He also sits on the panel of a few counties’ National Science Foundations.
Research
Tang's research interests encompass photocatalytic/thermocatalytic small molecule activation (e.g. CH4,[9][10] N2,[11] H2O,[12] C6H6 and CO2[13][14]) and microwave catalysis (e.g.
plastic recycling),[15] together with the investigation of the underlying charge dynamics and kinetics by state-of-the-art spectroscopies.[16][17] According to
Google Scholar, these research activities result into >250 journal papers in reputable journals.[18]