Congratulations to Dr. Robin Vogel for an Excellent PhD Defense, who successfully defended his PhD thesis, supervised by Prof. Bert Weckhuysen and Dr. Freddy Rabouw.

In his PhD thesis, Robin has explored how industrial catalysts used in hydrocarbon conversion become deactivated by carbon deposits. Using time-resolved spectroscopy, he studied how laser light interacts with catalysts during operation, revealing both spectral and dynamic information. By filtering out slower background signals like fluorescence, he was able to obtain clearer Raman spectra and more accurate temperature measurements. This approach provided new insights into carbon formation and improved the precision of catalyst characterization.

Robin’s PhD thesis is available to read here.