Martin P. Atkins

Following a distinguished career in industry in a number of role:  Project Manager, Chief Scientist and Chief Technology Officer, Professor Martin Atkins is currently CTO of Poseidon Plastics Ltd and CEO Green Lizard Technologies Ltd, a Queen's University, Belfast spin-out company where Martin held the Chair of Chemical Innovation and Sustainability focussing on core platforms in clean energy technologies and recycling.

Prior to joining The Queen's University in 2013, Martin spent the major part of his working life in the Oil & Gas industry with BP (29 years), his last post was Chief Scientist BP China where he set-up and established the BP Clean Energy Centre in Dalian from 2002 – 2009. It was here that he developed and commercialised five technologies with various partners in China and received the People's Republic of China Award for Science and Technology in Beijing in 2006.

After BP, Martin moved to PETRONAS Malaysia (2009-2013) as Chief Technologist, appraising investment opportunities and helping set-up and develop core skills to commercialise technology from within PETRONAS. A major success was development of a new process for removing mercury from gas and hydrocarbon streams deployed widely within PETRONAS and received a major accolade in 2014 of a triple iChemE awards for innovation, teamwork and sustainability.

In 2019, Martin received an award from the Chinese Central Government in recognition of his continued and dynamic contribution in promoting science and technology co-operation between China and the UK in both business and academia.

Poseidon Plastics Ltd is based at The Wilton Centre, Teesside, where commercial trials are being carried out with major global brands and polyester producers supporting Poseidon's mission to help solve one of the largest problems facing the word today – how to deal with waste plastic and polyester in an environmentally friendly method with full circularity as driver.

Martin is also acting CTO for a novel plastics recycling and biomass to sustainable aviation fuel partnership with Abundia Global Impact Group and GLT with a variety of downstream off-take partners with start-up of commercial plants projected for 2024.