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.”

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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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MCEC members receive funding for collaborations with private partners from the NWO Chemistry Innovation Fund

Rob Lammertink has received LIFT-project (Launchpad for Innovative Technology) grant:
Asymmetric Polyelectrolyte Multilayer Membranes for micro-pollutant removal

Bert Weckhuysen has been honoured with a TA (Technology Area) programme grant:
Promoter and poison effects in heterogeneous catalysis: Novel tools to shed fundamental insight

Read more (Dutch)
(July 2016)

Bert Weckhuysen is appointed as a Scientific Advisory Board member of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mulheim/Ruhr as of January 1st 2017.

Johan will work in the research group Intensified Reaction and Separation Systems (IRS) of prof. Andrzej Stankiewicz. He will start on September 1st 2016 and he will work on the development of process technology involved in the understanding of the interplay between thermodynamic interactions, hydrodynamic interactions and diffusion, using a combination of an experimental and computational approach.

He will stay involved in the MCEC program as a project leader and as a member of the MCEC Education Committee.

Read more (Dutch)