News & Announcements

Catalysis Awards 2009

At NCCC X, the bi-annual 'KNCV Katalyseprijs' will be granted for the best PhD thesis in the period 2007-2008. The prize will consist of a plaque and 1250 EURO. Candidates can be nominated by the group leaders until January 12. More details can be found at the KNCV Katalyse website. At the occasion of the second NCCC lustrum, KNCV Katalyse and NCCC will also hand-out a brand new Netherlands Chemistry & Catalysis Award. The prize of 10.000 EURO will be sponsored by VIRAN. Candidates can be nominated until January 16 according to a procedure which is decribed at the KNCV Katalyse website.

DZA meetings in October and November

Scientists from Academia and Industry are invited to participate to the annual meeting of the Dutch Zeolite Association, to be held at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel on October 31 2008. A plenary lecture will be given by Dr. Giuseppi Bellussi, the new IZA Ambassador, and the recipient of the 2007 IZA Award. Besides 7 invited lectures on topics like novel hybrid materials, MOF materials, industrial applications, synthesis, characterization etc., a poster session is organized.

More information: VUB website 

More DZA activities in November, including lectures by Mike Treacy (Arizona State University) can be found at the DZA website.

KNCV Catalysis organises workshop 'Practical Aspects of Catalyst Testing

On November 14, a workshop will be organised at BASF in De Meern. The workshop is organised by and for people who are actively involved in doing catalytic experiments. More details are available at the workshop website: www.catalysisworkshop.nl.

Biocatalysis workshop, 20 November 2008

NIOK is preparing a Biocatalysis workshop which will be organised at 20 November at NWO, The Hague. The presentations and discussion of this workshop aim to clarify the problems around biocatalysis in the Netherlands. It is aimed that academic and industrial scientists jointly identify how in the Netherlands the biocatalysis can be more supported. Renowned international key scientists will illustrate their national structures of how biocatalysis is supported. Some speakers that have already confirmed are Christian Wandrey (Jülich), Nich Turner (Manchester) and Kalle Hult (Stockholm). More information can be obtained from Dr Ulf Hanefeld (TUD).

Geus Lecture on November 21st

The next lecture within the framework of the Geus lecture series (UU) will be given by Prof. F. Kapteijn (TU Delft) on Friday, November 21 at 4.00 p.m. and is entitled "Structured catalysts or structure in catalysis?". You are kindly invited to attend the lecture.

More information can be found in the flyer.

Did your catalyst die?
Don't let its demise be in vain, butdiscuss it at the International Symposium on CATALYST DEACTIVATION. The International Symposium on CATALYST DEACTIVATION will be held in The Netherlands, TU Delft (Auditorium), October 27 - 29, 2009. Book these days in your calendar, abstracts are due December 15, 2008.

More information: conference website

ACENET brochure

The ACENET ERA-NET, the Applied Catalysis for Europe Network, has published its brochure at the end of September. The booklet summarises some of the activities and major achievements of ACENET following the first four years of its existence. Furthermore it goes on to analyse the key roadmaps and foresight studies from Europe and abroad in order to identify and address major future research needs in the key strategic areas of applied catalysis and chemical engineering. To obtain hard copy versions of the brochure, please send an e-mail to acenet@nwo.nl. The electronic version can be downloaded from the acenet website.

Nanohost

Together with several other European groups, the groups of Vogt (TU/e) and Klein Gebbink (UU) have succesfully applied for FP-7 funding. The Marie Curie International Training network NANO-HOST started on October 1st. Various methods for immobilisation of homogeneous catalysts will be studied. Eindhoven and Utrecht will both host a PD and a PhD student.

More information: www.nanohost.eu or Flyer.

Awards & Grants

Swiss awards for Dutch researchers

The Schweizerische Chemische Gezelschaft has awarded the Werner prize for promising young scientists (10.000 Swiss Francs and a bronze medal) to prof. Jeroen van Bokhoven (ETH Zurich). The Paracelcus prize (20.000 Swiss Francs and a gold medal) was awarded to Prof. Ben Feringa (RUG).

UU researchers win poster prize

Niels Meis (UU) received on the E-MRS (meeting of the European Materials Research Society) a prize for the best poster. The titel of the poster was "Supported hydrotalcites for enhanced and stable CO2 capture". A short overview of the research of Niels can be found at Niels' website.

Johan de Breejen has won a young scientist award at the ICC meeting in Seoul, Korea. His poster was entitled 'Cobalt on silica catalysts for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and the effect of manganese promotion'. A short overview of the research of Johan can be found at Johan's website.

Business news

BASF leading chemical company in Dow Jones Sustainability Index
BASF is the leading chemical company in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World). The Chemical Company was recognized for its climate strategy, its environmental and social reporting and for developing innovative and eco-efficient products. The DJSI World is the most important sustainability index andrepresents the top 10 percent of the largest 2,500 companies in each industry in the Dow Jones Global Index.

More information: BASF website

More information: BASF website

Albemarle Launches New ActivCat(TM) Technology

Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) a global leader in supported single-site catalyst production and metallocene catalyst components, has created a revolutionary new activator/single-site catalyst program that delivers twice the typical productivity of conventional products.

More information: Albemarle website

Avantium announces master services agreement with Chevron Energy Technology Company

Avantium announced that it has entered into a master services agreement with Chevron Energy Technology Company for the application of high-throughput technologies in the development of catalysts in the oil and gas field.

More information: Avantium website

DSM launches U.S. Department of Energy-funded research initiative for second generation biofuels
Royal DSM N.V., the global Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company today announced the execution of a multimillion dollar cooperative funding agreement with the US Department of Energy to underwrite a portion of research and development costs aimed at enabling “second generation” biofuels from non-food feedstocks.

More information: DSM website 

People on the move

New assistant professor in Twente

On September 1st Arie van Houselt (1980) started as assistant professor in the Catalytic Processes and Materials group at the University of Twente. He studied chemistry and physics at the university of Utrecht and spent his Ph.D. period at the University of Twente, studying chains of Pt atoms with STM . His research will involve the use of carbon nanofibers as catalyst support materials.

More information: Arie's website

Recent 'Dutch' Patent Applications in Catalysis

On a regular base, we provide you with the latest Dutch patent applications in the field of catalysis. The overviews are published on our website: www.niok-society.nl.

Thesis defences

20 October: J. Wang; Synthesis of zeolite composites with hierarchical porosity. Promotores:  Prof. M.-O. Coppens; prof. A. Schmidt-Ott (TU Delft).

21 October: C.P. Bouvier; An exploration towards a more sustainable process for dimethyl naphthalene-2,6-dicarboxylate over acidic zeolites. Promoter: Prof. W. Buijs (TU Delft).

3 November: S.R.M. Pereira; Chemometric Optimization Studies in Catalysis Employing High-Throughput Experimentation. Promotores:. Prof. R.A. Sheldon and Prof. G.J. Witkamp (TU Delft)

10 November: W. Wei; Tuning of Fe and V sites in microporous and mesoporous materials for O2 and N2O induced selective oxidation reactions. Promoter: Prof. J.A. Moulijn (TU Delft).

11 November: M. Bartels; Agglomeration in Fluidized Beds: Detection and Prevention. Promoter: Prof. F. Kapteijn (TU Delft).

Conferences etc.

Several new conferences were announced recently. In the near future, you can visit a workshop on Hybrid Organic/Inorganic Frameworks or NCCC. An overview of catalysis-related conferences and symposia and more information can be found in the agenda of KNCV Catalaysis.

Next Edition

The next edition of this Netherlands Catalysis Newsletter will be distributed in January 2009. Content can be supplied to and by our correspondents.

This newsletter is distributed 4-5 times per year to members of KNCV catalysis and those who have (been) signed up via the NIOK Society. If you want to (un)subscribe, please visit our website for instructions.