Prof. Kai Yan is a full professor at the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research and RWTH Aachen University in 2011. Then he obtained an Ontario Government Postdoctoral Fellowship at Lakehead University (2012-2013) and joined Brown University as a postdoctoral research associate (2013–2016). His current interests mainly include biomass conversion and nanostructured materials for clean energy and environment-related applications. He has published more than 100 SCI papers in international academic journals, such as Nature Rev. Phys., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Appl. Catal. B, ACS Catal., AICHE J. He has severed as the editorial board member/young editorial board member of Green Energy Environ., Current Green Chem., Chin. Chem. Lett., Biochar, eScience, etc. Furthermore, he has received the International IAAM Medal, the First Prize of Science and Technology Progress of the Ministry of Education, the RSC Top 1% Highly cited Scholar, and the Science and Technology Award of Guangdong Environmental Society.