On behalf of the Education Committee, a warm thank you to all who participated in this year’s MCEC School. We look back on a very informative week in which we enjoyed a lot of interesting (guest) lectures from Bas Haring and Tom van Aken as well as research talks from MCEC members, and overall learned a lot of new things – who, for example, knew that SCUBA is actually the abbreviation of Super Cool Underwater Breathing Apparatus?

MCEC School was organized in Rhenen as part of the training program for MCEC PhDs and Postdocs. This year marked the third edition of this annual event, which contains basic and advanced lectures with emphasis on multiscale and multidisciplinary approach. To see the full program, click here.

Haring
The work of Bas Haring – Professor Public Understanding of Science at Leiden University – focuses on how science is best explained, from the scientist to the general audience. In his invited lecture on Monday night, Haring shared his vision about and tips and tricks on explaining science to laypeople. Keeping high school students in mind as the target audience in your communication is a good idea, for they can provide a frame of reference concerning a broader general audience.

PEF
Though Avantium is a relatively small company, it has a huge impact. For instance, they have developed a completely new, high-quality plastic made from plant-based industrial sugars: the PEF bottle (made from polymer polyethyl­enefuranoate). In his invited lecture on Tuesday night, Tom van Aken, CEO Avantium, discussed product development and marketing, and talked about biobased and renewable energy.

Trouble
The Trouble Shooting Cases turned out to be very helpful. To Vishak Chandra, Aditya Sengar and Edwin Dollekamp it brought new insights in how to proceed with their research approach; a pre-solution for Vishak to solve his challenge and a new approach for Edwin to fabricate a nano-electrode, including the offered help of his colleagues to be able to test this new idea. New MCEC PhDs Michel van Etten and Valery Muravev also presented their projects and discussed their ideas about their approach and possibilities for collaborations with the MCEC PhD Community.

SCUBA
Team Community organized a quiz on science, music, geology and sports. This is where we learned that SCUBA, the Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, is actually Super Cool. We also learned how to get a group of 38 MCEC students drinking a beer at the bar completely silent: by showing them only emoticons as a means to convey song titles.

Below, you’ll find some pictures of MCEC School. If you have pictures yourself, please send them to us. As every year, our PhDs and Postdocs have received a survey request to provide the organization with feedback.

We thank all speakers and attendants for their contribution to the success of MCEC School 2017!

2-6 October, 2017

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

Dear MCEC Member,

Please have a look at the brand new MCEC PowerPoint Template. Let us know what you think of the new design. In our latest MCEC Newsletter you can read about:

• MCEC Annual Meeting
• MCEC Lectures: Life After MCEC
• PhD Defenses Laurens Mandemaker and Paulo Lovreglio
• MCEC School 2021
• Valery Muravev (TU/e) Article in Nature Catalysis
• Christia Jabbour (UU) Review artivle in Nature Catalysis

Get in touch with us on LinkedIn!

MCEC Annual Meeting

The MCEC Annual Meeting 2021 was held both online and in person on 21-22 June. The first day we had the pleasure to enjoy lectures from Detlef Lohse ‘Pay to Publish’ and David Fernandez Rivas ‘How to utilize gas filled bubbles and microfluidics?’. We also got updates on projects from some of our current PhD candidates and Postdocs.

The second day we all could meet live in Utrecht at ‘de Moestuin’ where we enjoyed each others posters and company.

Also the workshop from the Pyrolysis demonstrator team was a great success.

Please fill in the MCEC Annual Meeting 2021 survey.

MCEC Lectures: Life After MCEC

On Thursday July 1st we hosted two lectures of our program: Life after MCEC.  We would like to thank Dr. Katarina Stanciakova and Dr. Jessi van der Hoeven for their time and wish them succes in their future activities.

PhD Defenses Laurens Mandemaker and Paulo Lovreglio

Many congratulations to our new doctors Laurens Mandemaker and Paulo Lovreglio!
On June 2nd, Dr. Laurens Mandemaker (UU) successfully defended his PhD thesis titled ‘The Birth, Life and Death of Surface-Mounted Metal-Organic Frameworks’. Read more about Laurens’ thesis here.
Dr. Paulo Lovreglio (TU/e) also defended his PhD thesis successfully. On June 5th he presented his work ‘Flow and dispersion in packed beds’. Have a look at Paolo’ thesis here.

MCEC School 2021 – Oktober / November

This fall will be the 6th (and last) MCEC School specifically organized for MCEC PhD students and the Postdocs as part of their training program. We will update you with a Save the Date as soon as possible.

Valery Muravev (TU/e) Article in Nature Catalysis

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.

Read the interview we had with Valery

Christia Jabbour (UU) Review in Nature Catalysis

Christia Jabbour set out to test the potential of a catalyst when it’s embedded in different types of materials that are used in our lives. The concept of the review was  to see if we were able to bridge the link between material science and chemical reactivity of different catalysts.

Have a look at the review article: Chemical targets to deactivate biological and chemical toxins using surfaces and fabrics – Christia R. Jabbour, Luke A. Parker, Eline M. Hutter & Bert M. Weckhuysen

Summerbreak

On behalve of the MCEC Office, we wish  you a very nice summer and hope to see you at our next lecture in the series Life after MCEC at September 23rd.

The MCEC Annual Meeting 2021 was held both online and in person on 21-22 June.

The first day we had the pleasure to enjoy lectures from Detlef Lohse ‘Pay to Publish’ and David Fernandez Rivas ‘How to utilize gas filled bubbles and microfluidics?’. We also got updates on projects from some of our current PhD candidates. The second day we all could meet live in Utrecht at ‘de Moestuin’ where we enjoyed each others posters and company.

To make sure future MCEC Meeting will be a success, we would like to ask you to please fill in the MCEC Annual Meeting 2021 Survey:

Thank you very much!

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