Thiago de Melo Lima

Biography

Thiago de Melo Lima earned his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the Federal University of Goiás in 2010 and a master’s in Chemistry in 2012 from the same institution. He completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Federal University of São Carlos from 2012 to 2016, which included a sandwich period at Palacky University (Czech Republic) at the Regional Center of Advanced Materials. During this time, he focused on synthesizing heterogeneous catalysts using more sustainable methodologies and applications in biomass recovery reactions. From 2016 to 2018, he undertook a post-doctoral internship at the Center of Excellence for Research in Sustainable Chemistry (CERSUSCHEM, UFSCar) with a FAPESP-GSK scholarship. In 2018, he became a professor in the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at Fluminense Federal University, where he founded the Biomass Catalysis and Valorization Group the same year. He is currently the vice coordinator of the Postgraduate Program in Chemistry at UFF, a CNPq Level 2 Productivity Fellow, a Young Scientist in Our State, and a Young Researcher from Fluminense – FAPERJ. He serves as a working group member to implement the UN’s sustainable development goals at Fluminense Federal University. He represents the UFF group on the Ibero-American Network of Universities committed to Education in Human Rights and Inclusive Citizenship, specifically in sustainability. Selected by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, he participated and presented work at the 8th Young Investigator Forum (South Africa, 2023)—a sustainable aviation fuel connection network member – ANAC-ANP. He is a permanent member of the Postgraduate Program in Chemistry at UFF and supervises master’s students, PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, and undergraduate students. His research focuses on developing heterogeneous catalysts for depolymerizing and converting waste biomass into sustainable aviation fuels and other value-added products. He is also engaged in outreach activities within local communities to raise awareness of sustainability concepts and disseminate the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Recently (2024-2025), he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College Dublin in the Low Carbon Technologies Research Group through funding from the European Research Council and FAPERJ.

Awards