Photo of Professor Xin Tu

Professor Xin Tu PhD

Chair in Plasma Catalysis Electrical Engineering and Electronics

About

Personal Statement

Prof. Xin Tu received PhD in Physics from Université de Rouen (CORIA CNRS UMR 6614, France) and PhD in Thermal Engineering from Zhejiang University (China) in 2007. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, from 2008 to 2009 (with Prof. Bert Sels). In September 2009, he joined the University of Manchester (UK), working as a Research Associate in the School of Chemistry (with Prof. Christopher Whitehead). He was appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at the University of Liverpool in 2012 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2015, Reader in 2017 and Chair in 2019.

Prof. Tu has been working for many years on interdisciplinary research at the interface of plasma science and chemical engineering directed towards environmental clean-up, fuel production, chemical synthesis, waste treatment and nuclear decommissioning. Significant efforts have been devoted to plasma catalysis where the combination of non-thermal plasma and heterogeneous catalysis has been used as a promising and emerging low-temperature process for the removal of gas pollutants (e.g. VOCs, PAHs and NOx) in waste gas streams and the conversion of carbon and nitrogen sources into value-added fuels, chemicals and carbon materials such as CH4 activation, CO2 conversion, hydrogen production, nitrogen fixation, tar reforming/syngas cleaning and biomass/plastics waste conversion. Prof. Tu has a sustained record of high-quality publications (over 210 peer-reviewed journal papers, 25 WoS Highly Cited Papers) in leading international journals such as Nature Rev. Mater., J. Am. Chem. Soc., JACS Au, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Mater., Appl. Catal. B: Environ., ACS Catal., Chem. Eng. J. (Google citation). He has given over 90 invited/keynote/plenary talks at leading international conferences and has a sustained record of presenting at national and international conferences.

Prizes or Honours

  • Faculty Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Award (Faculty of Science and Engineering at UoL, 2020)
  • B. Eliasson Award (ISPCEM, 2014)

Funded Fellowships

  • Newton Advanced Fellowship (Host) (Royal Society, 2018 - 2022)
  • Newton Advanced Fellowship (Host) (Royal Society, 2015 - 2019)