Rate My Professor Muxina Konarova

Associate Professor Muxina Konarova serves in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland within the Engineering faculty. She obtained her Doctor of Philosophy and Masters of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. Throughout her career, she has led numerous academia-industry collaborative projects, securing more than $15 million in funding as the lead Chief Investigator. Her partnerships include collaborations with five large organizations via Advance Queensland Research Fellowships (Early and Mid-Career), ARENA-UQ, ARC-Linkage projects, ARC-Hubs, and Innovation Connections grants.

Specializing in catalytic process engineering, Associate Professor Konarova's research team develops sustainable chemical processes targeting climate change mitigation, waste utilization, and circular economy advancements. Their work emphasizes designing selective, stable, and active solid catalysts and integrating them into reactor systems optimized for mass and heat transfer using feedstocks such as biomass, plastic waste, and CO2. Employing advanced spectroscopic techniques, the team analyzes reaction products, uncovers mechanisms, and enhances product selectivity to support a carbon-neutral chemical industry. Key awards include the Advance Queensland Research Fellowship (Early Career) for sustainable production of ethanol from bio-syngas (2016-2019) and the Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship for exploiting municipal solid waste toward a waste-based refinery (2019-2022). Selected publications feature "Focused review on natural hydrogen: occurrence, economic viability, perspectives, and implications for underground hydrogen storage" (Nguyen et al., Energy and Fuels, 2026), "Binary organosolv strategy for simultaneous high yield and structure preservation" (Wang et al., Green Chemistry, 2026), "Promotion Effects of Zr, Na, K, and Mn on Encapsulated Fe@Si Catalysts for CO2 Hydrogenation" (Yan et al., Energy & Fuels, 2025), and "Advances in lignocellulosic biomass pyrolysis and catalytic upgrading for sustainable biofuel production: process design strategies and reaction rationales" (Yan et al., Green Chemistry, 2025). She coordinates and lectures courses such as Energy Transitions in Industrial Processes (ENGY7003) and Process Modelling and Control (CHEE3007). Ongoing projects encompass ARC Research Hub for Value-Added Processing of Underutilised Carbon Wastes (2024-2029) and ARC Research Hub for Carbon Utilisation and Recycling (2023-2029).