AMOLF and Utrecht University have been awarded a 1.9 M€ research project by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Key Technologies 2020-2023 programme to develop radically new catalytic reactors using plasmonic systems. The project entitled “Sensing and Steering Catalytic Reactions with Light” (CatLight) is a multidisciplinary collaboration between AMOLF (Alarcon-Llado, Albrecht, Ehrler, Garnett and Polman), Utrecht

Are you curious how a new type of thermometer can contribute to our mission to greenify chemistry? Watch Daan’s pitch about his research! Recently, a selection of our PhD-candidates followed a training about pitching their research for a broad audience. Among these researchers was Daan Groefsema from the UU. Daan’s research focuses on the development

Om grote stappen te maken in de verduurzaming van de chemische industrie moeten we vele talenten en disciplines met elkaar verbinden en samenwerken. Bert Weckhuysen in RTL Doe Maar Duurzaam: ‘We moeten de verbinders van de toekomst opleiden die in staat zijn het bedrijfsleven, de overheid en de kennis met elkaar te verbinden. Het ARC

Bert Weckhuysen and two younger scientists reflect on recognition and rewards ‘Utrecht University abandons the impact factor as a benchmark for recruitment and selection or promotion.’ This could be read on the Nature website last summer. Numerous positive reactions follow worldwide. However, there is also criticism. In an open letter on ScienceGuide, Dutch academics (mostly professors) warn that the new recognition

An important step towards a carbon-neutral society is making transportation fuels like diesel and gasoline from carbon-neutral carbon sources like biomass, waste plastic, and even CO2. Because diesel and gasoline have quite different hydrocarbon structures, combining these two functions into one catalyst material had so far eluded researchers. A team of researchers from Utrecht University

ICC scientists, in cooperation with the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, have discovered new fundamental insights into the reaction mechanism of CO2 hydrogenation. CO2 hydrogenation is one of a set of important reactions that can help solve the problems related to global warming caused by CO2 in the atmosphere. The reaction converts the harmful CO2

  Catalysts are used in essentially all chemical processes to increase their efficiency and lower energy costs. They help by making the desired reaction pathways faster, or more favorable compared to undesired reaction pathways. To do so, the catalyst must associate with the molecules that need to be converted using active sites at the catalyst

Catalysts are important materials that are used to increase the resource and energy efficiency of chemical reactions and processes. Although catalysts operate in cycles that normally restore their initial activity over and over again, they do deactivate over time. ICC Researchers at Utrecht University and University of Twente have now developed a powerful analytical tool

A team of researchers from the ICC group at Utrecht University has solved one of the fundamental mysteries in catalysis: the paradox of structure insensitivity. The work was a collaboration with Technion Institute of Technology, Eindhoven University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, and the Paul Scherrer Institute, and was published today in Nature