Congratulations to Dr. Joyce Kromwijk on a successful PhD defense, during which she defended her PhD thesis, supervised by Prof. Bert Weckhuysen, Dr. Ward van der Stam, and Dr. Matteo Monai.

In her PhD thesis, Joyce developed a sustainable alternative route for benzene production, addressing the challenge of moving away from crude oil as a feedstock. Benzene serves as a chemical building block for many modern-day products, including plastics, medicine, and coatings, making sustainable production routes critically important.

Joyce developed a two-stage catalytic process to produce benzene from CO₂ emitted during industrial processes. In the first step, CO₂ is converted to CH₄ using a nickel-based catalyst in the presence of H₂, a reaction known as CO₂ methanation. Subsequently, the formed CH₄ is transformed into benzene using a zeolite-based catalyst in the methane dehydroaromatization reaction (MDA), which was the main focus of her work.

Her thesis describes fundamental studies aimed at improving the understanding of MDA catalysts. Additionally, Joyce designed and constructed a two-stage reactor that enabled the conversion of CO₂ into benzene. She successfully demonstrated that CO₂ can be converted to benzene via CH₄ as an intermediate.

Finally, Joyce discussed the implications of scaling up this process, providing insights into the practical feasibility of implementing this sustainable benzene production route at an industrial level.

Joyc’s full thesis can be read here.