MCEC was represented at CHAINS 2016 (December 6, 7 and 8) together with the other Dutch Gravitation programs in the field of chemical sciences:

• The Research Center for Functional Molecular Systems (FMS) aims to gain a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms, structures, and chemical processes that lead to living systems.
• The Institute for Chemical Immunology (ICI) brings together Chemistry and Immunology in the new field of Chemical Immunology to diagnose and treat diseases related to immune system failure via new, targeted chemical compounds.

The following MCEC members and PhD students contributed to this event as chair or speaker at several sessions: Ivo Filot, Frank de Groot, Volker Hessel, Jan Philipp Hoffman, Arnout Imhof, Petra de Jongh, Florian Meirer, Celso de Mello Donega, Evgeny Pidko, Roderigh Rohling, Martin Sint-Anneland.

The following MCEC posters where presented:

Robin Broos (TU/e) The effect of surface termination on key reactions for Fischer-Tropsch reaction over iron-carbides

Vetrivel Shanmugam (TU/e) Effect of promotors on Ni/SBA-15 catalysts for steam reforming of poly alcohol in microreactors

Bas Salzmann (student of Robin Geitenbeek, UU) Towards luminescent temperature sensing in catalytic environments using Y203:Eu3+/AI203 complexes

Jochem Wijten was nominated for the prize because of his remarkable talent and passion for research. During his Master’s, he combined the expertise and technical infrastructure of Utrecht University and TU Eindhoven in a multidisciplinary context. With his research into alternative, carbon-free energy sources, he contributes to a more sustainable future in a major way.

December 1, 2016

On November 16th 2016, CatchBio (which stands for Catalysis for sustainable chemicals from biomass) celebrated 10 years of research in catalytic conversion of biomass into valuable building blocks. It did so with an open symposium called CatchBio Celebrates!, where some of our MCEC members were present as well.

Bert Weckhuysen (scientific director of CatchBio) opened the symposium with a view on the journey along the past 10 years: ‘Taming the recalcitrance of biomass with catalysis’. Emiel Hensen spoke about ‘Opportunities and challenges in catalytic lignin valorisation’.

CatchBio talents Evgeny Pidko and Pieter Bruijnincx talked about their CatchBio highlights in a video message that was shown during the conference.

For more information on CatchBio, their research program and upcoming events, visit their website.

Volker Hessel and his colleague professor Jan van Hest (Biomedical Engineering, TU/e) wants to combine the benefits of natural biochemical processes with sophisticated continuous reactor technology for such aims as making new and cheaper medicines.
“….Ben Feringa has just won the Nobel Prize for nano-machines; what we want to produce are micro-machines.”

Read more>

And from Phys.org:
<< The production method for many drugs and chemicals is laborious, with a separate reactor for each chemical reaction. A research consortium led by TU/e professor Volker Hessel is taking a completely different approach. Within biological cells chains of reactions occur faultlessly next to and through each other. The researchers want to imitate this and so enable chains of reactions to occur simultaneously, within a single reactor. The goal is to make huge savings in terms of the production and development costs of drugs and create new opportunities for personalized drugs. The research, which has a four-million euro EU subsidy, begins in January.>>
Read the whole article here.

October 7, 2016

With several introductory talks and the close involvement of our students, this year’s MCEC School (3-7 October, Rhenen, the Netherlands) featured a lot of made-to-measure knowledge. The lectures and tutorials, combined with social activities and a case study contest, as well as good company and conversations, made for a very insightful week.

Read more about MCEC School 2016 (pdf).

On the 22nd of September, 22 MCEC PhD-students and postdocs visited the Shell Technology Center and the production site of Albemarle Catalysts in Amsterdam-North.

The morning session, at Shell, was organized by Peter Klusener (Process Development Chemist), with Maurice Fransen (Flow Assurance Engineer) being their host. Ingmar Ploemen (Manager New Energy Technologies) provided the MCEC visitors with an interesting lecture on Shell’s vision concerning the energy challenge. The PhD’s and postdocs were led around three units on the site: 3D printer, flow-slug loop and catalyst and process R&D.

After lunch, they hopped on their rental bikes again and drove to Albemarle, where they were received with a presentation by Prof. Eelco Vogt (Catalysis of Refinery Processes) about the size of the oil and catalyst industry and the role of Albermarle therein. Vogt also explained the processes of the catalysts, which the PhD’s and PD’s subsequently were shown in the plant on the production site (FCC and Hydrotreating).

Our PhD’s and PD’s were also invited for lunch at Shell and, at the end of the day, informal drinks at Albemarle, which gave them the opportunity to talk to the companies’ employees about their daily work life.

The excursion was initiated and planned by MCEC’s Team Community.

September 24, 2016

The rational design of next-generation catalysts that will contribute to solving the impending energy and environmental challenges requires accurate description of mesoscale phenomena in catalysis. Current state-of-the-art modelling techniques mostly focus either on the nanoscale description of individual elementary reaction steps or on the macroscale to describe behavior of reactors, usually employing lumped reaction kinetics. In this project, new modelling tools are developed to study emergent phenomena at the mesoscale that lead to evolution of the catalyst structure as a result of changes in the surface adsorbed layer. In detail, we investigate the complex processes occurring in the Fischer-Tropsch reaction, an industrially important reaction for the synthesis of transport fuels and chemicals. In this reaction, many important details remain unclear: the influence of lateral interactions, surface reconstruction under catalytic conditions, migration of adsorbates between different surface facets of nanoparticles and deactivation due to strongly adsorbing reaction intermediates are far from understood. Describing these mesoscale phenomena with sufficient accuracy leads to opportunities to guide the design of novel improved catalysts.

Emiel Hensen has been appointed as dean of the department Chemical Engineering as of October 1, 2016.

He succeeds Jaap Schouten following his appointment as chairman of the new NWO domain Applied and Engineering Sciences.

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“With this part-time position, I am extending my expertise to biomedicine and optics. I will be applying my knowledge of molecular inorganic chemistry and mechanisms of chemical transformations to design of new functional materials for drug delivery and non-linear optical applications. The ambition is to develop computational methodologies for a detailed molecular-level description of chemical processes in solution that would allow guiding the synthesis of new materials. I envisage that these methods could also be applied for modeling processes underlying synthesis of heterogeneous catalysts.”

This 2 years fellowship will allow Evgeny to regularly visit St. Petersburgh to give lectures and develop further and strengthen his group there. More importantly also students from ITMO will come to Eindhoven to work on catalysis-related topics and learn cross-disciplinary research approach. To support scientific exchange for both universities, at least two young researchers of ITMO will stay at TU/e for 3 months each.

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Detlef Lohse is one of the main initiators of the Max Planck Center for Complex Fluid Dynamics. This first Max Planck Center in the Netherlands (UT campus), will be carrying out research into complex fluid dynamics phenomena, from nanodroplets to very large-scale turbulence.

The complex behavior of fluids plays an essential role in renewable energy, chemical reactors, shipping, inkjet printers and biological processes. Fundamental research in this field therefore has an impact on a wide range of applications. The new Max Planck Center will build on the existing cooperation between two research groups at the UT (Detlef Lohse’s Physics of Fluids and Albert van den Berg’s BIOS Lab-on-a-chip) and the Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen (Dynamik und Selbstorganisation) and Mainz (Polymerforschung).

Read interview with Detlef Lohse

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