**Ioan Balint**

Dr. Ioan Balint is a Senior Researcher and currently the Director of the "Ilie Murgulescu" Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Romanian Academy. Dr. Balint obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 1996 from the same institute. He obtained three postdoctoral stays, one of them at the Pierre et Marie Marie Curie University in France (1998–1999), and another two at the Department of Environmental Chemistry and Catalysis in the group of Prof. Ken-ichi Aika of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan (2000–2005). He has been an invited Professor several times at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo Technical University in Japan, and he also gained an UNESCO Scholarship at the same institute. Dr. Balint has an extensive research background encompassing various topics within surface science, such as non-isothermal gas desorption kinetic from supported-metal catalysts; solid defect chemistry; and water–gas shift reaction on the surface of simple and doped ionic oxides, the field of material synthesis, such as mesoporous nano oxides; mono/bimetallic metal nanoparticles; catalysis: catalytic combustion of hydrocarbons; oxidative coupling of methane; hydrogenation and oxidative conversion of conversion hydrocarbons; structure-sensitive reactions; and nitrate and nitrite abatement, as well as the field of photocatalysis/light harvesting, such as water and air depollution; water splitting; light-induced reactive oxygen species generation; and solar cells. He has been the Project Director for five projects receiving national grants and an expert member of many national/international committees. Dr. Balint has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in well-recognized scientific journals, and has an H-index of 21.

### **Monica Pavel**

Dr. Monica Pavel is a senior researcher at the "Ilie Murgulescu" Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Romanian Academy. She obtained her BSc degree in Chemistry and Physics in 2005 from the University of Pitesti, Romania, and her MSc degree (2006) in "Sciences of Materials, Nanomaterials and Multimaterials" from the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse, France. During October 2007 to November 2010, she carried out her PhD studies in Materials Chemistry at the University of Lyon 1—the Institute of Researches for Catalysis and Environment of Lyon in France under the supervision of Dr. Pavel Afanasiev. She continued as a Postdoctoral Researcher (2011–2013) at the University of Bucharest, Romania, with a short internship at the Institute Charles Gerhardt Montpellier, France. Her research interests are on the synthesis of transition-mixed oxides and 2D materials; utilization of various methods (e.g., molten salts, organic solvents, co-precipitation, solid state route, ion-exchange reactions); photocatalytic removal of pollutants (chlorinated/organic compounds, antibiotics, etc.); combustion of light alkanes; and the total oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
