Wen-Feng Lin is the University Special Envoy for East Asia, Professor and Director of Research of Chemical Engineering of Loughborough University, UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), a Fellow and a Board member of the British Council of the International Association of Advanced Materials (FIAAM), and a Fellow of European Academy of Sciences (EurASc). He has expertise and makes substantial contributions in original research, innovation and teaching in broad cross-disciplines spanning Chemical Engineering, Electro-chemistry, Catalysis, Clean Energy and Environmental Technology Development, with specialisms covering green hydrogen, carbon capture and utilisation, and advanced fuel cells and batteries. 

The primary themes of his research are related to clean energy, environment, and sustainability. He collaborates internationally, and has led a significant number of externally (EU, UK EPSRC/UKRI, industry, Royal Society etc) funded projects ranging from fundamental understanding of electro-catalysis at atomic and molecular levels, to applied R&D in sustainable energy materials, green hydrogen production, fit-for-purpose fuel cells, batteries, ozone generation from water for water treatment, and advanced oxidation technologies. He has an output of over 200 publications, 6 patents and contributions to 2 spinouts. Recent papers are published in top tier journals such as Nature Energy, Chem. Soc. Rev., Joule, Energy Environ. Sci., JACS, PNAS, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Energy Mater., and Chemical Engineering Journal.

After obtaining his BSc, MSc and PhD (in electro-chemistry) from Xiamen University, he was an Associate Professor at the same University before embarking on his international academic adventure. He was a Senior Visiting Scholar at the University of Hong Kong and Case Western Reserve University; held two prestigious Research Fellowships awarded by the Humboldt-Foundation and Max-Planck-Society, working with Nobel Laureate Prof. G. Ertl in the Fritz-Haber-Institute in Berlin. In the UK, he was a Senior Research Fellow and a Founding Director of two spinouts at Newcastle University (1999-2008); a Lecturer (2009-2012) and Reader/Research Professor (2013-2015) at Queen’s University Belfast. He joined Loughborough University as Chair/Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2015 and has been in the leadership roles of Director of Research for Chemical Engineering since 2019, and the University (President’s) Special Envoy for East Asia since 2023.