Binhang Zhao

PhD candidate in Chemistry with a strong academic background in Chemical Engineering and hands-on experience in heterogeneous catalyst formulation, synthesis, structured catalyst fabrication, characterisation and performance evaluation. I have developed self-supported hierarchical porous silica-based monolithic catalysts using sol-gel and various templating methods, with systematic control of catalyst composition, pore architecture, surface functionality and active-site accessibility. My experience includes batch synthesis, liquid-phase catalytic testing, product analysis and interpretation of structure-performance relationships.

I am proficient in N2 physisorption, SEM, mercury intrusion porosimetry, XRD, FT-IR, TGA, XPS, ICP-OES, NH3-TPD, CHNS elemental analysis and GC-MS. With interdisciplinary training in chemistry and chemical engineering, I aim to apply my experience in catalyst formulation and structured catalyst fabrication to scalable manufacturing, catalyst shaping, quality control and reactor integration.

PhD researcher - University of Liverpool - Liverpool, UK

(2022-09 - 2026-09)

Department of Chemistry

• Designed and synthesised hierarchical porous silica-based monolithic solid catalysts with controlled macro-/mesoporous architectures using emulsion, ice, soft and hard templating, enabling tuneable porosity, accessible active sites and improved mass transport in heterogeneous catalytic reactions.
• Conducted comprehensive catalysts characterisation using N2 physisorption, SEM, mercury intrusion porosimetry, XRD, FTIR, TGA, XPS, CHNS elemental analysis and NH3-TPD.
• Analysis of surface area, pore size distribution, macropore volume, bulk density, acid density and elemental composition.
• Evaluated synthesised heterogeneous catalysts in sustainable fuel-related transformations, including esterification of free fatty acid feedstocks for biodiesel applications and glycerol acetalization for value-added chemical production.
• Operated batch autoclave reactors and controlled batch reactor systems for liquid-phase catalytic testing and optimised reaction conditions including temperature, catalyst loading, reactant ratio and reaction time, and linked catalytic performance to catalyst structure, acid-site density, pore accessibility and mass-transport behaviour.
• Catalyst reusability and hot-filtration analysis.
• Performed product identification and quantitative analysis using GC-MS and GC-FID, and calculated conversion, yield, selectivity, carbon balance and turnover frequency (TOF) to assess catalytic performance.
• Prepared manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals and contributed to experimental design, data interpretation, figure preparation, editing and scientific writing.

MSc Research Project - The University of Manchester - Manchester, UK

(2020-09 - 2021-09)

Department of Chemical Engineering

• MSc thesis involved supported palladium catalysts on silicalite-1 for selective oxidation of allylic alcohols, providing additional experience in heterogeneous catalyst design, supported metal catalysts and catalytic performance evaluation.

PhD candidate - Chemistry - University of Liverpool (2022-09 - 2024-09)

MSc - Advanced Chemical Engineering - The University of Manchester (2020-09 - 2021-09)

BEng - Chemical Engineering - Jianghan University (2015-09 - 2019-06)