Awardees of the 2025 IUPAC-Zhejiang NHU International Award for Advancements in Green Chemistry

Main achievements of the winners

Over the course of his career, Javier Pérez-Ramírez made significant contributions to green chemistry, transforming the landscape of sustainable chemical and energy production. His work on catalytic processes included his breakthrough In₂O₃ catalysts for green methanol synthesis and highlighted the potential of reducible oxides. This technology is now being piloted in industry. He made revolutionary strides in electrocatalysis for renewable energy conversions including work on nickel electrocatalysts for CO₂ conversion to long-chain hydrocarbons and fundamental contributions to the oxygen evolution reaction and N₂ electroreduction for decentralized ammonia production. In chemical plastic recycling he advanced new catalyst design for converting large-volume polyolefin waste streams into valuable chemicals and highlighted the importance of transport phenomena for ensuring high catalyst effectiveness. He is pioneering data science tools such as AI and machine learning to accelerate catalyst discovery and optimization. His approach is distinguished by the integration of sustainability metrics into chemical process design and incorporation of lifecycle analysis and planetary boundaries to guide catalysis research, ensuring innovation aligns with environmental responsibility. Pérez-Ramírez has over 500 journal publications and 25 filed patents. His many accolades, coupled with leadership roles in journals and research programs underscore his holistic vision and profound impact on the field of green and sustainable chemistry. Follow his work at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5805-7355.

As a young investigator with a deep interest in advancing green chemistry,  Jianbin Li is committed to addressing global challenges including resource depletion, energy scarcity, and environmental pollution. Drawing inspiration from nature, he focuses on exploring the potential of light and enzymes in chemical transformations, with the aspiration of making these approaches more practical and accessible for modern chemistry. His research spans a broad spectrum, from designing small molecules to macromolecules, and incorporates the use of photoactive reagents, organophotocatalysts, metallaphotocatalysts, and biocatalysts under straightforward and mild conditions. While working within these frameworks, he also integrates interdisciplinary tools such as high-throughput experimentation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to guide his efforts in reagent development, catalyst refinement, and reaction discovery. Through these endeavors, he aims to simplify reaction conditions, enhance efficiency, and contribute to greener, more sustainable chemical processes, hoping to provide alternative approaches that align with the principles of green chemistry and bring lasting value to the scientific community and beyond. Follow his work at https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4956-7625.

Philip Stanley’s work focuses on solar fuel production as a promising source of sustainable energy from solar light (a non-exhaustible source of energy), water and carbon dioxide. While molecular artificial photosystems deliver unique opportunities such as high product selectivity and atom economy, they often lack stability and recyclability, as well as controlled active site positioning for scale-up. These challenges are addressable by interfacing them with host materials, where metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) show beneficial characteristics including permanent porosity and modular building principles that tune properties and the chemical reaction environment. Such nano-scale reaction space design is modelled from natural enzymes and termed “nanozyme”. Stanley discovered new hybrid MOF materials that allow efficient conversion of solar energy to fuels by reducing carbon dioxide and oxidizing water simultaneously in one material— thereby mimicking the working principles of natural photosynthesis to a certain extent. He is building on these results to show i) the viability of this approach and ii) increasing light harvesting efficiency; even surpassing nature’s apparent quantum yields. He hopes to push the limits of these lab-scale materials towards sustainable industrial chemical processes and patent applications for real-world sustainable applications. Follow his work at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1951-4074.

Th e fundamental objective behind  Sahel Fajal’s research work is the design and development of innovative advanced functional porous materials for the separation of toxic chemicals, particularly those fostering environmental sustainability. In the pursuit of mitigating environmental challenges such as pollution, climate change, and resource depletion, the development of advanced porous materials has emerged as a promising avenue for innovative solutions. Among his works, as an example, he developed a unique acid-vapor-assisted solid-state synthetic strategy to construct novel ionic nanoadsorbents with large order porosity, which demonstrate enhanced sorption properties towards various toxic species. His methodologies to fabricate novel porous hybrid materials enable the development of unique nanocomposites, highly useful for sequestration applications. For example, he developed a method to construct ultralightweight hybrid aerogel materials, which showed efficient collection of heavy metal ions and radioiodine. Based on the principles of ion exchange and host-guest interactions, efforts have been made for effective separation of various environmentally toxic gases (radioactive organic-iodides and iodine species) and water contaminants (organic pollutants and inorganic metal species). This approach not only minimizes the use of hazardous chemicals in cleanup processes but also promotes the recycling of resources and the reduction of waste, aligning with the principles of green chemistry that prioritize environmental safety and sustainability. Ultimately, his research contributes to the development of innovative technologies that support a cleaner, healthier planet. Follow his work at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0546-3018.

The IUPAC-Zhejiang NHU International Award, managed by the ICGCSD of IUPAC, is presented every two years. The awards for 2027 will be announced in 2026.  For further information about the IUPAC-Zhejiang NHU International Award, see https://iupac.org/what-we-do/awards/.

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