STAFF PROFILE
Professor Adam Lee
Professor Lee was recently appointed Professor of Sustainable Chemistry at RMIT, having previously held a prestigious EPSRC Leadership Fellowship.
He has held Chair appointments at Cardiff, Warwick, Monash, and Aston universities and is one of the world's leading mid-career researchers in heterogeneous catalysis and green chemistry, targeting the rational design of nanoengineered materials for clean catalytic technologies, and the development of spectroscopic methods for molecular insight into surface reactions.
He was awarded the 2011 McBain Prize of the Society of Chemical Industry and 2012 Beilby Medal and Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, has published >210 peer-reviewed articles and graduated >30 PhD and MSc students.
Professor Lee pioneered the application of time-resolved XPS for surface reactions, and the in situ surface analysis facility will underpin ongoing mechanistic studies into transition metal catalysed biomass valorisation, and semiconductor photocatalysts for solar fuels production and environmental depollution.
View Professor Lee's profile on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.
Current research activities
- Rational design and application of nanostructured catalysts for sustainable chemical processes.
- Operando spectroscopies for heterogeneous catalysts
- Biomass valorisation for biofuels (including biodiesel) and bio-derived platform chemicals
- Aerobic selective oxidation of alcohols
- Photocatalytic production of solar fuels (CO2 conversion and H2 production) and environmental remediation
- Bimetallic nanoparticles and thin films
- Combinatorial materials synthesis and high-throughput analysis
Major awards
- 2012 Beilby Medal and Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, IM3 and SCI.
- 2011 McBain Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry and Royal Society of Chemistry.
- EPSRC Leadership Fellowship (2009-15)
- 2004 Fonda-Fasella Elettra Prize of the Italian National Synchrotron (2004).
- 2000 British Vacuum Council C R Burch Prize.
Key publications
- Single atom Cu(I) promoted mesoporous titanias for photocatalytic methyl orange depollution and H2 production. R. Trofimovaite, C.M.A. Parlett, S. Kumar, L. Frattini, M.A. Isaacs, K. Wilson, L. Olivi, B. Coulson, R.E. Douthwaite, A.F. Lee - Appl. Catal. B 2018, 232, 501, doi:10.1016/j.apcatb.2018.03.078
- Classical strong metal-support interactions between gold nanoparticles and titanium dioxide. H. Tang, Y. Su, B. Zhang, A.F. Lee, M.A. Isaacs, K. Wilson, Y. Ren, L. Li, J. Huang, M. Haruta, B. Qiao, X. Liu, C. Jin, D. Su, J. Wang*, T. Zhang - Science Adv. 2017, 3, e1700231, doi:10.1126/sciadv.1700231.
Academic
- PhD, University of Cambridge, 1995
- BA (Hons, 1st Class), University of Cambridge, 1992
Professional
- AFIChemE
- MRACI
- CChem FRSC