Dr. Wai Siong Chai is currently an assistant professor at Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham Ningbo China. He received his BEng (Hons.) in Chemical Engineering and PhD in Engineering from University of Nottingham. He then completed his postdoctoral training at Zhejiang University and Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen prior to joining UNNC.

His research focuses on experimental and numerical investigation of green fuel (biofuel) processing via thermochemical conversion, ammonia combustion and utilizatio, and environmental remediation. He published more than 40 papers and has been a supervisor/co-supervisor for a number of PhD and Master students. He is a Fellow with Higher Education Academy (HEA, UK), a Member with Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3, UK), an Associate Member with Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE, UK) and currently serves as Youth Editorial Board Member in Carbon Research.

University of Nottingham Ningbo China, 2023 - Present 

• Multicomponent Separations (CHEE3029)
• Reactor Design (CHEE3032)
• Fundamentals of Engineering Design (CHEE1022)
• Analytical Measurement (CHEE2035)

University of Nottingham Malaysia, 2022

• Introduction to Scientific Computation 
• Mathematical Methods for Civil Engineering 

Dr. Wai Siong Chai’s research interests span from waste to energy, which include:

Energy Engineering

• Thermochemical conversion of biomass to biofuel
• Experimental and numerical investigation into ammonia utilisation as future energy storage medium, storage and combustion
• Integrated green ammonia production process

Green Engineering

• Environmental remediation using various biological and non-biological methods
• Wastewater treatment

Membership

• Fellow, Higher Education Academy (HEA), 2025 - present
• Member, Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3), 2025 - present
• Associate Member, Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), 2017 – present
• Member, The Combustion Institute, 2022 – Present

Conference Involvement

• Session Chair and Member of the Program Committee, 14th Asia-Pacific Conference on Combustion (ASPACC2023), May 2023
• Committee, 8th International Conference on Alternative Fuels and Energy (ICAFE2023), Oct 2023
• Technical Program Committee, 2023 IEEE 14th International Conference on Mechanical and Intelligent Manufacturing Technologies (ICMIMT 2023), May 2023
• Symposium Chair, 39th National Conference on Mechanical Engineering of Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineers (CSME) 2022, Dec 2022
• Session Chair, 6th Postgraduate Colloquium for Environmental Research 2022 (POCER 2022), Jun 2022
• Technical Program Committee, 2022 IEEE 13th International Conference on Mechanical and Intelligent Manufacturing Technologies (ICMIMT 2022), May 2022

Other Activities

• Youth Editorial Board Member for Carbon Research
• Editorial Board Member for Bioengineered, Taylor & Francis, Clean Energy Science and Technology
• Guest Editor for Materials
• Review Editor for Bioenergy and Biofuels, Frontiers in Energy Research
• Reviewer for journals, including Chemosphere, Bioengineered, Fuel, Bioresource Technology, Science of the Total Environment, Renewable Energy, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Scientific Reports, Biochemical Engineering Journal, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review, etc.