Quicker and more effective catalytic converters: Kick-off SFB 1333

Catalytic converters are materials that accelerate chemical reactions and play an enormous role in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Making them more productive and selective is the aim of the new special research field “Molecular heterogeneous catalytic converters in defined, conducting geometrics“ (SFB 1333) at the University of Stuttgart. There will be a colloquium with a high-ranking cast for the ceremonious opening on 22. October 2018. It is simultaneously the prelude to a scientific series of lectures planned for a period of four years each with two events per semester. 

Time: Monday, 22. October 2018, 1.30 pm to 5.30 pm

Venue: Pfaffenwaldring 47, 70569 Stuttgart, auditorium 47.04

Representatives of the media are cordially invited.

The colloquium will be opened with welcoming addresses by the Rector of the University of Stuttgart, Professor Wolfram Ressel, as well as the spokesperson of the special research field 1333 and managing director of the Institute of Polymer Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart, Professor Michael R. Buchmeiser. In the scientific program Professor Matthias Beller from the Leibniz-Institute for Catalytic Converters (Rostock) will be speaking on the topic “Building bridges between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic converters“ and Professor Cristophe Copéret from ETH Zürich on “Molecular understanding and controlled functionalization of surfaces – on the path to single site catalytic converters and beyond“. (Lectures in the English language). Professor Rainer Helmig from the Institute for Modeling Hydraulic and Environmental Systems at the University of Stuttgart creates a link to the special research field 1313 going by the title “Interface-influenced multi-field processes in porous media  - flow, transport and deformation“, that is likewise promoted at the University of Stuttgart and whose spokesperson is Professor Helmig.

The subsequent series of lectures by the special research field 1333 will take place twice a year respectively in the semester for the next four years and, besides lectures by external scientists of international renown, there will also be opportunity for lectures given by junior scientists from the series of the special research field. The next event will take place on 17. January 2019. The speaker will be Professor Moniek Tromp from the University of Groningen/ Netherlands. She deals with innovative x-ray based characterization methods to investigate catalytic converters in the course of the catalytic process. 

Scientists from the fields of catalysis, material sciences, analytics and simulation are working jointly on the development of energy-efficient chemical processes in the special research field 1333. They take up a particularly successful catalysis concept, which only had a successful degree of success, however, in nature, namely the targeted use of cavities to control the catalytic process. This special research field 1333 now wishes to transfer this concept to chemical catalytic converters.