Blue and ultraviolet sunlight are highly energetic. Current technologies to harvest sunlight cannot use this energy efficiently. “Quantum cutting”, the conversion of blue and ultraviolet light into infrared, can change this. Freddy’s project ‘Science: Quantum cutting sunlight with Yb3+-doped perovskite’ will develop strategies for more efficient quantum cutting, which will inspire new technologies for sustainable energy production.

Last year, Rabouw received the Heineken Young Scientists Award in the category Natural Sciences from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), for his research on new materials to generate light, for example for solar cells or display screens.

Many congratulations Freddy!

On June 3 Nature Catalysis published MCEC PhD Valery Muravev‘s article titled ‘Interface dynamics of Pd–CeO2 single-atom catalysts during CO oxidation‘. The research that lies at the heart of this publication is a collaboration between different researchers from different universities: Valery Muravev, Giulia Spezzati, Ya-Qiong Su, Alexander Parastaev, Fu-Kuo Chiang, Alessandro Longo, Carlos Escudero, Nikolay Kosinov & Emiel J. M. Hensen.

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Dear MCEC Members,

We are happy to invite you to our Online Lecture Series: “Life after MCEC” given by our MCEC members. We encourage you to actively participate and ask any questions through the chat or after the lecture.

Our second lecture will be given by dr. Jeroen Vollenbroek.

Date: Thursday 20/05/2021
Time: 13.00 /13.45 h.

My name is Jeroen Vollenbroek and I am a Postdoctoral researcher at the Nephrology and Hypertension department at the UMC Utrecht and also partially at the University of Twente. I did my bachelor and master in Electrical Engineering at the University of Twente. During my PhD within MCEC I worked on a multidisciplinary, highly collaborative project at the BIOS Lab-on-a-Chip group (University of Twente) and the Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis group (Utrecht University). I worked together with Anne-Eva Nieuwelink on developing microreactors for the high-throughput activity screening (and sorting) of catalyst particles. During my MCEC project I could apply the knowledge I learned during my master and simultaneously learn a lot about chemistry and catalysis through the collaboration. Now, for my postdoc I am part of a long running project in developing a portable artificial kidney. My project focusses on the removal of urea from dialysate using electro-oxidation. During my talk/lecture I will tell about my experiences within MCEC, how MCEC helped me become the researcher I am, and a bit about my current project.

On Friday April 9th, MCEC’s C-Team organized a really fun, informal Remote Teambuilding Experience. It was an online escape room hosted by The Box Company.

‘Catalysis for CCU: Valorisation of CO and CO2 through Carbon Capture and Use’ is a multidisciplinary network of scientists, connected with well-established research groups in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, focused on Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) technologies as an essential step to developing the know-how for a low-carbon circular economy. 

To enhance the connection with other research groups Catalysis for CCU created a virtual platform that will be used to:

• Share Master and PhD research topics 
• Stream relevant PhD defences, invited lectures, and CCU seminars 
• Create CCU podcasts 
• Create a CCU database of available infrastructure, on-going projects and job opportunities 
• “CCU Happy Hours”, online meetings where a small group of young researchers discusses viral matters with relevant experts. 

Do you wish to participate in this virtual platform?
Get in touch with us: science.mcecoffice@uu.nl

Erik Maris (UU) has won the Poster Award at NCCC for his poster entitled ”Making more efficient zeolites; Visualizing motion on the single-molecule level”. The jury particularly appreciated the infographic-style layout, which allowed easy reading on a computer screen, and embedded sound fragments that made up an audio tour explaining the poster. We spoke with Erik about his poster and the choices that he made in the process of making the poster.

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The Prince Friso Engineer Prize for MCEC Member David Fernandez Rivas (UT) came digitally from the hands of KIVI President Joanne Meyboom. Fernadez Rivas also turned out to be the audience’s favorite, thus also winning the audience award. Meyboom said that the jury was struck by his inspiration. He inspires enormously and has a lot of expertise on specific subjects, but also looks at the width. He makes himself and his knowledge openly available and uses his entrepreneurship to actively pass on his knowledge. But above all, he wants to be an independent scientist, leading motivated professionals into challenging research at the intersection of physics and biomedical science.

Have a look at the projects that David Fernandez Rivas works on in this video made by ‘Koninklijk Instituut van Inginieurs’:

Read the jury report

On January 19, MCEC organized a kick-off 2021 meeting for all its members.

We gave the floor to our MT-members and tenure track assistant-professors

For all PhD’s and postdocs there was an interesting and fun workshop on the topic of developing your ‘online presence’. Felix Weijdema (UU) gave the workshop ”Improve Your Online Presence” in which he talked about what steps you can take to disseminate your work online in novel and engaging ways, and hence increase the impact of your research on science and society.

You will find the presentation slides of the ”Improve Your Online Presence”-workshop, on the MCEC MS Teams page.