Chemistry Entrepreneurship

Javier García-Martínez is the founder of Rive Technology, Inc. in Boston, USA, a spin-off from MIT, and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and the director of the Molecular Nanotechnology Lab at the University of Alicante, Spain. In 2018, the American Chemical Society presented him with the Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success and the World Economic Forum selected him as a Young Global Leader. Professor García-Martínez has published extensively in the areas of nanomaterials, catalysis, and energy, and also has over 25 patents to his name. Currently, he is the president-elect of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).



 



Kunhao Li is is currently a Director of R&D at W. R. Grace. His main responsibility is to lead the efforts to further develop and commercialze the Molecular-Highway zeolite and Rive catalyst technologies in a wide range of industrial catalytic processes. He was a Principal Scientist at Rive Technology before its acquisition by Grace in 2019, where he led the development and commercialization of the technologies in hydrocracking and dewaxing, which was licensed exclusively to Shell in 2018. He obtained his PhD from George Washington University in 2006 and did postdoctoral research at Rutgers University before joining Rive in 2008.