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Professor Erwin Reisner is the Professor of Energy and Sustainability and Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, within the Chemistry faculty. He is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. Reisner obtained his Diploma in Chemistry, integrating BSc and MSc programs with distinction, his PhD with distinction, and his Habilitation from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna. His postdoctoral positions included an Erwin Schrödinger Research Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BBSRC Research Associateship at the University of Oxford.
Reisner joined the University of Cambridge in 2010 as an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow and University Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, progressing to University Reader in 2015 and Professor of Energy and Sustainability in 2017. He directed the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable SynGas Chemistry from 2012 to 2019 and co-founded the waste-to-fuel start-up Protonera Ltd in 2024, serving as Chief Scientific Officer. His research focuses on renewable energy technologies and sustainable chemistry, particularly sunlight-powered production of fuels and chemicals via solar chemistry and circular processes. This encompasses artificial photosynthesis, biohybrid systems for solar fuel generation, solar reforming of lignocellulosic biomass and plastic waste, and CO₂ capture with utilization into green products. His group has pioneered autonomous solar-powered prototypes for CO₂ conversion to carbon monoxide, formic acid, and multi-carbon products, alongside water oxidation, and demonstrated advantages of waste oxidation over water in solar reforming. Notable awards include the Hughes Medal from the Royal Society (2023), Tilden Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry (2024), Corday-Morgan Prize (2018), and Galvani Prize (2022). Key publications feature “Solar reforming as an emerging technology for circular chemical industries” (Nature Reviews Chemistry, 2024), “Solar-driven liquid multi-carbon fuel production using a standalone perovskite–BiVO₄ artificial leaf” (Nature Energy, 2023), and “Floating perovskite-BiVO₄ devices for scalable solar fuel production” (Nature, 2022).
Discover how University of Cambridge researchers use a solar reactor to transform car battery acid and plastic waste into hydrogen and chemicals, as published in Joule. Explore implications for UK sustainability.
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