Jovana Zečević will receive this year’s Edith Flanigen Award which is conferred annually by The Collaborative Research Centre 1109 at Humboldt University of Berlin to an exceptional female scientist at an early stage of her career (postdoctoral fellow, junior researcher) for outstanding results on metal oxide water systems.

The Edith Flanigen Award has been created in honour of Edith Flanigen, who performed groundbreaking work on molecular sieves at a time when women were rarely found working in highly complex scientific careers. The Award will be presented during a public Award ceremony on the 12^th of October 2017 in Berlin.

We congratulate Dr. Zečević on winning this award!

27 September, 2017

MCEC Members Ivo Filot and Freddy Rabouw have both been awarded a Veni Grant 2017 by NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research). Veni is a part of NWO’s Talent Scheme programme. We wholeheartedly congratulate Ivo and Freddy on this great success!

A brief summary on their research projects (read more on the website of NWO):

Mesoscale simulations in catalysis
Dr. ir. I.A.W. (Ivo) Filot (m), TUE – Inorganic Materials Chemistry
Understanding catalysis at the all length and time scales is important in solving today’s environmental and energy challenges. The researchers will study how the structure of a catalyst changes during a chemical process. In this way, new ways can be identified to avoid premature catalyst deactivation.

Characterizing catalysis on the molecular scale
Dr. F.T. (Freddy) Rabouw (m), UU – Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science
Catalysts make chemical reactions faster and more efficient. A typical catalyst contains billions of active nanoparticles that together determine its properties. The researcher will study chemical reactions on the scale of individual catalytic nanoparticles. This will yield a better understanding of catalysis and contribute to the development of new catalysts.

28 July, 2017

PICASCO aims to deliver the commercial proof of concept of a novel end-to-end flow manufacturing and a novel corresponding compact mini plant. This is performed through the first continuous 3-step solvent-free flow manufacturing of a pharmaceutically relevant compound at an industrial scale. Currently applied batch manufacturing techniques leave much room for improved quality, efficiency, cost-effectiveness and environmental friendliness. Flow multi-step manufacturing can address all these issues simultaneously, but to date has not been brought to an industrially useful scale. PICASCO sets out to scale this final barrier.

Read more on the newspage of TU/e.

July 25, 2017

The American Physical Society (APS) has awarded Detlef Lohse with the 2017 Fluid Dynamics Prize, because of his “profound and wide-ranging contributions to our understanding of fluid turbulence, multiphase flow, and granular flows; for outstanding contributions to the teaching and training of future fluid dynamicists; and for long-standing service to the international fluid dynamics community”.

The Fluid Dynamics Prize, which recognizes and encourages outstanding achievement in fluid dynamics research, has been awarded by the APS annually since 1979. Detlef Lohse counts as the youngest recipient and only 3rd non-American so far.

Read more on the website of the APS.

July 17, 2017

EFCATS, the European Federation of Catalysis Societies, has announced today that they are awarding the 2017 EFCATS François Gault Lectureship to Krijn de Jong, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis. The Award will be presented at Europacat XIII in Florence in August. This Award recognizes individual groundbreaking contributions to catalysis.

Krijn de Jong is being specifically recognized for his original approach to establish synthesis-structure-performance relationships in the field of heterogeneous catalysis.

June 9, 2017

Read more >

Mathieu Odijk has been nominated by the Dutch magazine New Scientist as one out of 25 science talents for 2017. 

Reaching the next round means that he will be able to represent his research on the New Scientist Live: Nobelprijs event on June 22. The winner of the prize New Scientist Science talent 2017 will be announced on that event.

You can vote for your scientist of choice before 5 June via newscientist.nl/polls/new-scientist-wetenschapstalent-2017.

Bert Weckhuysen, Katinka Wondergem and Anne-Eva Nieuwelink feature in the first episode of ‘Captains of Chemistry’, a podcast by BNR. In this series, reporter Edwin Mooibroek explores the subjects of chemistry and innovation and tries to answer the question: How can the chemical sector contribute to a better, sustainable world?

In this first episode, Katinka Wondergem explains how catalysts can be used to make plastic from tree bark and, ultimately, even of sunlight, water and CO2. Anne-Eva Nieuwelink explains how she has developed a cleaner way to make polyglycerol, a hydrating substance that is often used in day and night creams. Bert Weckhuysen gives a glimpse into his research and tells how he educates young researchers in developing sustainable chemical processes.

The series are in Dutch only. You can listen to this episode online here (where you can also subscribe to the series), or read the news item (Dutch) on the news page of Utrecht University here.

 23 May, 2017

Jeroen Vollenbroek is this year’s MCEC Poster Prize Winner with his poster on Design and Characterization of a Microreactor for Nanodisperse Catalytic Droplet Generation at both Elevated Temperature and Pressure. The jury – composed of Wouter Olthuis, Frank Peters and Florian Meirer – had a hard time making this decision, since most participants showed a strong performance in both the design of their poster and their pitch.

Jeroen‘s poster (click on image for an enlargement) was chosen because of the balance in design and content, and the clear demonstration of the collaboration between different MCEC groups that led to the findings presented. A special mention goes out to Robin Broos, who put a lot of effort in the poster and dared to design it in a different way. The jury found this to be very impressive.

An interview with Jeroen can be found here: Interview Poster Prize winner 2017.

At the MCEC Annual Meeting 2017, a total of sixty PhDs, PDs and MCEC Members were present. The two-day programme in Drienerburght (Enschede) included scientific lectures by Jovana Zecevic, Frank Peters and Rob Lammertink and 8-minute presentations (and poster viewings) by all PhDs and PDs present.

The invited evening lecture, Understanding Science Journalism: balanced reporting and alternative facts, was provided by Anne Dijkstra, who talked about balanced reporting, alternative facts, science-media relations, how society perceives science and technology, and how the role and impact of science communication evolved during the last century.

The organization would like to thank all participants for a dynamic and insightful meeting.

19-20 April, 2017

The University of Twente has created a great environment to start your own company and the campus is swarming with ambitious start-ups. But if you want to become one of them, be forewarned:  a lot of start-ups origin from a patent – but as soon as your research has been published or presented, you won’t be able to patent it anymore. These are just a few of the insights MCEC PhDs gained from their PhD Excursion: Business Development & Start-ups, held prior to the Annual Meeting.

On April 18th, MCEC PhDs and PDs made a visit to start-up companies at The Gallery and the High Tech Factory at the campus of the University of Twente. Lectures were provided by Roy Kolkman, patent specialist and Rogier de Haan, business developer (both working at Novel-T), and the company tours in the afternoon went to nymus3D, Lyonix bv., Tide microfluidics, Solmates and Micronit. Most of these start-ups originated from PhD research, once conducted at the University of Twente. The day was closed with diner and a bowling match. 

This PhD excursion was organized by Team Community, together with Aura Visan and Renée Ripken.

18 April 2017