Professor Eileen Yu

Background:

Eileen Yu joined Loughborough in 2020. She holds a Chair of Electrochemical Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering. She obtained PhD from Newcastle University under supervision of Prof. Keith Scott with the study on the development of direct methanol alkaline fuel cells, which was one of the first studies in the area. After her PhD, she worked as a research fellow at Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Germany, before returned to Newcastle to take a prestigious EPSRC Research Fellowship (Life Science Interface) in 2006.

This fellowship enabled her to extend her research into the biosciences, from which she has developed a multidisciplinary research profile. This gives her the solid ground to further develop her career in the emerging field of bio-electrochemical engineering. She has established her research group with focuses on novel bioelectrochemical systems for healthcare, CO2 utilization, energy and environmental applications. She has extensive international collaborations with leading research groups globally.

She has participated in attracting more than £15m total research funding from UKRI. She was the initiator and Co-PI of £1.2m NERC consortium of Bioelectrochemical systems for resource recovery from wastewater (MeteoRR). She is also currently the PI leading £2m EPSRC funded consortium on multidisciplinary low carbon fuels programme to produce liquid fuels and chemicals from carbon dioxide reduction (LifesCO2R) with combined bio-electrochemical and biological processes, with four other UK universities (Oxford, Surrey, Sheffield, South Wales), and working closely with industrial and international partners.

She is an Editorial member of Fuel Cells (Wiley), Biosensors (MDPI) and ACS , and Associate Editor for Frontiers of Energy Research.

Qualifications:

• PhD (Chemical Engineering)
• School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials
• University of Newcastle upon Tyne
• MSc (Environmental Engineering)
• Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering
• National University of Singapore

Key awards:

• 2009 UK-India Young Scientist Networking Conference, Chennai, India, British Council
• 2006 1st Prize Creative and Connectivity competition, Challenging Engineering, EPSRC
• 2005 EPSRC Research Fellowship (Life Science Interface)

Outline of main research interests:

Electrochemical, bioelectrochemical systems for Energy and Environmental applications:

• Electrocatalysis for CO2 utilisation, fuel oxidation, oxygen reduction and pollutant remediation etc.
• Wastewater treatment and resource recovery
• Microbial electrochemical synthesis
• Environmental sensors
• Energy harvesting from waste and renewable energy
• Reactor design and sustainable integrated processes and systems

Biosensor and Bioelectronics for Biomedical Applications:

• Enzymatic fuel cells as power sources for implantable medical devices
• Electrochemical biosensors for diagnosis (with disease biomarkers), monitoring and management diseases/treatment.

Materials for Electro and Bioelectrochemical systems:

• Catalysts, Membranes & Nanomaterials

Teaching responsibilities:

• 13CGC035/052 Reaction Engineering II
• 20CGPxxx Advanced Process Design and Optimisation

Selected publications:

1. Xiang, H., Rasul, S., Hou, B., Portoles, J., Cumpson, P., Yu, E.H. (2020) Copper-Indium Binary Catalyst on a Gas Diffusion Electrode for High-Performance CO2 Electrochemical Reduction with Record CO Production Efficiency. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b16862
2. Şahin, S., Wongnate, T., Chuaboon, L., Chaiyen, P., Yu, E.H. (2018) Enzymatic fuel cells with an oxygen resistant variant of pyranose-2-oxidase as anode biocatalyst. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2018.01.065
3. Spurr, M.W.A., Yu, E.H., Scott, K., Head, I.M. (2018) Extending the dynamic range of biochemical oxygen demand sensing with multi-stage microbial fuel cells. Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology, 4(12). https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ew00497h
4. Burkitt, R., Whiffen, T.R., Yu, E.H. (2016) Iron phthalocyanine and MnOx composite catalysts for microbial fuel cell applications. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2015.07.010
5. Milner, E.M., Popescu, D., Curtis, T., Head, I.M., Scott, K., Yu, E.H. (2016) Microbial fuel cells with highly active aerobic biocathodes. Journal of Power Sources, 324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.05.055
6. Sadhukhan, J., Lloyd, J.R., Scott, K., Premier, G.C., Yu, E.H., Curtis, T., Head, I.M. (2016) A critical review of integration analysis of microbial electrosynthesis (MES) systems with waste biorefineries for the production of biofuel and chemical from reuse of CO2. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.11.015
7. Ng, K.S., Head, I., Premier, G.C., Scott, K., Yu, E., Lloyd, J., Sadhukhan, J. (2016) A multilevel sustainability analysis of zinc recovery from wastes. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.05.013

External links:

• Newcastle University
• Oxford University
• Sheffield University
• University of Manchester
• University of Surrey
• University of South Wales
• Northumbria University
• Liverpool University
• Brunel University
• Zhejiang University, China
• Shell Research Ltd
• TaTa Steel
• Chivas Brothers
• Northumbrian Water

External roles and appointments

• Committee Member of Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) Electrochemical Engineering working group
• Visiting Professor, Newcastle University, UK
• Editorial Board member for Fuel Cells
• Associate Editor of Frontiers of Energy Research, Nanotechnology for Energy Applications
• Associate Editor of Frontiers of Chemical Engineering, Sustainable Process Engineering
• ACS Applied Energy Materials Editorial Advisory Board member