Special Price for Andreas Nagl

Andreas Nagl is PhD student at the Institute of Materials Chemistry and works in the group “Technical Catalysis” supervised by Prof. Föttinger. In his project he works with bimetallic gold catalysts (consisting of two different metal components) for the selective oxidation of (bio-)ethanol.

The catalyst that was developed allows the conversion of ethanol with molecular oxygen as an environmentally friendly oxidant with high selectivity. The products, acetaldehyde and acetic acid are important base chemicals for the chemical industry (worldwide production in the million tons scale) and thus from accessible renewable feedstocks. This means a relevant contribution to the future concept of the “biorefinery” and the reduction of the dependence on fossil hydrocarbons.
Andreas Nagl uses the award for research stays at international institutions and project partners (e.g. BESSY Berlin, DESY Hamburg, ALBA Barcelona, DLS Didcot/UK) where he is observing catalytic processes with Synchrotron radiation. Understanding the catalyst structure and the reaction mechanism is the key to tuneable bimetallic catalysts for industrial application.