Prof. Ir. Dr Chai Siang Piao is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and the Deputy Head of School (Research) for School of Engineering. Prof. Chai is an active researcher in the areas of heterogeneous catalysis, photocatalysis, reaction engineering and advanced functional materials. His current research interest primarily focuses on the development of advanced photocatalytic materials for environmental and sustainable energy applications. He has published more than 150 articles in ISI journals accumulating total citations of more than 10,000 times. Prof. Chai has won numerous awards and recognitions, which include Global Highly Cited Researcher, Malaysia’s Research Star Award, Top Research Scientist Malaysia, National Outstanding Educator Award (Research), etc. Prof. Chai is also an editorial board member for 6 international journals, grant assessor for numerous national and international funding agencies as well as scientific reviewer for more than 80 ISI-journals published by major publishers, such as NPG, AAAS, ACS, Wiley, CellPress, RSC, Elsevier, etc

In recent decades, significant endeavours have been dedicated in resolving the escalating energy and environmental problems which have raised to an alarming rate. Photocatalysis, a process which drives chemical transformations by harvesting solar light in the presence of a catalyst, has emerged as a promising route to address these challenges. This technology appeals to be sustainable and less energy consuming due to its prominent feature of utilizing inexhaustible solar energy as the main driving force. Our research activities primarily focus on the rational design of novel, robust nanostructured materials for the applications in solar energy production and environmental remediation, which include pollutants degradation, hydrogen and oxygen evolution by water splitting as well as carbon dioxide photoreduction into hydrocarbon fuels such as methane and methanol. These projects are funded by Science Fund (MOSTI), NanoMITe -LRGS and FRGS (MOHE).

• CHE3164 - Reaction Engineering