During the day, a total of four lecturers will be given by people from in- and outside the University of Twente. More information about the specific lectures can be found on below. The day itself will be guided by Prof. Dr. Guido Mul from the University of Twente.
After obtaining a MSc in chemistry, with a specialization in heterogeneous catalysis from the University of Utrecht in 1992, Guido received his PhD in 1997 from the Delft University of Technology on a thesis on catalytic purification of Diesel exhaust gas. After a Post-Doc position at SRI-International (Stanford Research Institute) (1997-1999), he was awarded a fellowship of the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) to return to the Delft University of Technology as assistant professor, investigating the mechanism of heterogeneous catalytic processes using in situ spectroscopy and transient kinetics. He was awarded a VIDI scholarship in 2005 to develop liquid phase (photo)catalytic processes.
In 2009 he was appointed full professor initiating the research group ‘Photocatalytic Synthesis’ at the University of Twente. Prof. Dr. Guido Mul is a leading scientist in synthesis and performance evaluation of (photo)electrodes and photocatalysts for environmental and industrial applications, and published over 200 peer-reviewed papers. He chairs the discipline of chemical engineering at the UT, is a member of the Dutch ECCM advisory committee (Electrochemical Conversion and Materials), a member of the CCPTS council (Chemical Conversion, Process Technology, and Synthesis (Top Sector Chemistry)), editorial board member of the international journals “ChemElectroChem“ and “ACS Environmental Science & Technology – Engineering”, and presently cooperates with industry in various Public-Private, and Dutch Science Foundation-funded consortia. Finally, he enjoys teaching the courses Process Engineering, Industrial Chemistry and Processes, Advanced Catalysis, and Electrochemical Engineering.
Kornelis Blok has worked his entire professional life on the energy transition. When he was 28, he co-founded a consultancy company, Ecofys – now part of Guidehouse. With this company, he has worked on the technical development of renewable energy sources, and later on the development of European energy, and climate policies. Ecofys has also helped companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. A landmark achievement was the development of the so-called Sectoral Decarbonisation Approach, which is now used by many companies to set their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
At the same time, Kornelis Blok has always held academic positions, first at Utrecht University and now at Delft University of Technology where he holds a chair in energy systems analysis. He is also chairman of the Delft Energy Initiative, the umbrella organisation for all energy research at Delft University of Technology.
Kornelis has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles on topics like industrial energy and carbon efficiency, energy impacts of consumption patterns, energy systems based mainly on renewable sources, carbon-capture-and-storage, and the design of international climate policies.
Kornelis Blok is a lead author for the 3rd, 4th and 6th Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the institution that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
The energy transition away from fossil fuels is essential to reduce climate change. The energy transition is not only a change of energy sources but also impacts how we use, convert, transport, and distribute energy: we can better talk about a full energy system transition. The energy transition is still in an early stage. There have been some clear successes, for example, the substantial cost reduction of wind energy, solar energy, and batteries. But there are still quite some challenges ahead of us.
Sascha Kersten studied chemical engineering at the University of Amsterdam. His master thesis dealt with the influence of recycle streams on the controllability of plants. After his master, he worked at the ECN, the energy research foundation of The Netherlands. At ECN, his activities included: transient plant models, control, coal gasification, fuel cells and as the last subject biomass gasification in circulating fluidized beds. On the latter, he wrote a PhD thesis under the supervision of professor van Swaaij. In 2003 he moved to the University of Twente as coordinator of the biomass research and as assistant prof in Van Swaaij’s group. In 2011 he was appointed full professor in Sustainable Process Technology at the same university. His current research interests are electrification of the petro and chemical industry, CO2 capture and utilization, biofuels and biochemical, water cleaning and purification and methane to chemicals. Next to these contemporary problem areas, he works on reactor selection and design methods. In 2018, Sascha Kersten was appointed scientific director of ISPT, the Dutch Institute of Sustainable Process Technology which includes all the Dutch technical universities and ca. 80 companies. He is co-founder of SuSTER BV, a private R&D company. He has published ca. 150 papers (H = 56), 7 book chapters, 1 book and holds 7 patents.
Evert Leijenhorst graduated as a Chemical Engineer at the University of Twente in 2006 (SPT, Van Swaaij, Kersten) and started the same year as a process engineer at BTG Biomass Technology Group BV. His research and development activities involve both the fast pyrolysis of biomass for the production of fast pyrolysis bio-oil and the gasification of bio-oil for syngas production. The work at BTG was combined with a part-time PhD position at Ghent University under the supervision of Prof. Wolter Prins (2011-2016) resulting in his thesis entitled ‘Biomass gasification via fast pyrolysis’.
Prof Dr Frederik Wurm was appointed full professor at the UT in August 2020. He is currently leading the group Sustainable Polymer Chemistry (SPC; Faculty of S&T). The group designs materials with molecular defined functions for degradable polymers and nanocarriers for agricultural or biomedical applications and especially phosphorus-based polymers. Before coming to UT, Frederik was a research group leader (2012-2020) at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, Germany), where he conducted his habilitation. Frederik conducted a postdoctoral stay at EPFL Switzerland, where he worked with protein-polymer hybrids. In 2009, he finished his dissertation on the synthesis of complex macromolecular architectures. He studied Chemistry at the universities of Mainz (Germany) and Toronto (Canada). Frederik’s research was awarded several times in the past decade and his group published more than 250 research articles in various peer-reviewed journals.