Newswise — From 8 to 18 January 2025, Professor Tobin Marks, our HKIAS Senior Fellow and an internationally renowned chemist as well as materials scientist, visited City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) for an academic exchange. His visit included interactions with prominent scholars and the delivery of the prestigious HKIAS Distinguished Lecture on 13 January 2025.
The lecture, titled “Toward a Circular Plastics Economy: Mechanism-Based Catalyst Design and Evolution for Waste Polymer Recycling,” addressed the urgent need for sustainable solutions to the global plastics crisis. Professor Marks highlighted the alarming statistics of plastic production, with annual outputs reaching 395 million tons in 2018 and projections suggesting a threefold increase by 2050. He emphasized the environmental and resource challenges posed by traditional linear economic models of plastic consumption.
Professor Marks shared innovative solutions for recycling high-demand plastics, employing earth-abundant catalysts, solvent-free processes, and mild reaction conditions to promote a circular plastics economy. The lecture was facilitated by Professor Alex Jen, Lee Shau Kee Chair Professor of Materials Science at CityUHK, and supported by the Kwang Hua Educational Foundation. More information about the lecture, please click here.
During his visit, Professor Marks engaged with various CityUHK faculty members, including Professor Anderson Shum, Vice President (Research), Professor Shuk Han Cheng, Executive Director of HKIAS, Professor Jinlian Hu, Chair Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Professor Jianping Wang, Dean of College of Computing, Professor Xiaocheng Zeng, Head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, among others. The HKIAS tea gathering on 15 January 2025 provided further opportunities for academic exchange with CityUHK faculty members and students, including Professor Charles Xu, Chair Professor of the School of Energy and Environment.
Professor Marks is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists in chemistry and materials science. His prolific career is marked by more than 1,500 peer-reviewed publications, 210 U.S. patents, and an array of international accolades. These include the U.S. National Medal of Science, the Prince of Asturias Prize for Technical and Scientific Research, the MRS Von Hippel Award, the ACS Priestley Medal, etc. Professor Marks is a fellow of numerous prestigious academies and professional societies, including the U.S., German, Italian, European, and Indian Academies of Sciences, as well as the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Beyond academia, Professor Marks has had a profound impact on the industry, founding or co-founding 15 start-ups whose technologies have generated approximately $100 billion in sales.
