Nathalia Tavares Costa (best lecture award), Shreyas Harsha (best lecture award), and Jord Haven (best poster award), PhD researchers affiliated with the Department of Chemical Engineering & MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, won awards at the 25th Netherlands Catalysis and Chemistry Conference (NCCC, March 4-6, 2024, Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands).
NCCC is the annual Dutch forum to exchange innovative ideas between academic and industrial scientists in a broad area of catalysis and chemistry research and technology. This gathering draws typically over 500 attendees comprising professionals from academia, industry, and research institutions across Europe.
Nathalia presented her research on photocatalytic active coatings aimed at tackling indoor air pollution, particularly targeting Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). SBS stands for situations in which building occupants experience acute health and discomfort effects related to time spent indoor. Under the supervision of Prof. Guido Mul, Dr. Georgios Katsoukis, Dr. Annemarie Huijser, and Dr. Jitte Flapper (Akzo Nobel) the project is part of the Advanced Research Center Chemical Building Blocks Consortium (ARC CBBC) and focuses on synthesizing “smart” indoor paints based on strontium titanate (STO) particles with highly controlled structure. Such coatings can enable efficient degradation of typical indoor pollutants such as volatile organic compounds, a wide array of chemicals, originating from sources such as air fresheners, cleaning products, combustion by-products, and interior decoration, among others.
Shreyas presented his research on platinum nanoparticle-based electrodes fabricated by solid-state dewetting for electrochemical hydrogen evolution, a project supervised by Dr. Marco Altomare and financially supported by the Dutch Research Council NWO in the frame of the Dutch Electro-Chemical Conversion and Materials ECCM program. Shreyas’ project pioneers the use of combined physical vapor deposition and solid-state dewetting methods to produce scalable, binder-free nanoparticle-based electrodes with ultra-low loadings of precious catalysts for efficient hydrogen generation by water electrolysis. Electrodes fabricated this way hold potential for large scale production of hydrogen as renewable energy vector and for a greener chemical industry.
Jord presented his poster on catalysis guidelines for membrane-driven industrial propylene production via non-oxidative dehydrogenation of propane. Under the supervision of Prof. Jimmy A. Faria Albanese, and Prof. Leon Lefferts the project is part of the Additive Manufacturing for Zero-Emission Innovative Green Chemistry (AMAZING) consortium, aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of industrial processes for the production of plastics using catalytic membranes. In his poster, Jord explained the catalyst and membrane requirements that scientific research should fulfil to achieve the required reduction in industrial carbon emissions.
