Research activities
Study of the chemical transformation of reactants to desirable products in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic or non-catalytic systems. Theoretical determination of thermodynamic possibility for certain transformation and experimental determination of kinetic parameters for these transformations. In practice most physical and chemical transformations occur in the multiphase systems, therefore research efforts are focused on the study of the interaction between intrinsic kinetics and transport phenomena.
The emphasis of the research is put on:
- Carbon dioxide valorisation: emphasis is on searching appropriate catalysts for CO2 conversion to added-value chemicals: E.g. methane and methanol.
- Light hydrocarbon valorisation: we are working on methane conversion into syngas and liquid fuels with plasma reactor technology.
- Bio-refining/bio-based chemicals valorisation: biomass is as a renewable source enormously underappreciated, therefore we are focusing on various biomass valorisation, from lignocellulosic to marine biomass, its' fractionation, depolimerisation into building blocks and conversion into added-value chemicals, experimentally and with modelling.
- Electirification: using new characterisation methods and theoretical modelling we are endeavouring to improve electro-catalytic reaction design utilizing the water cycle, CO2 and nitrogen.
- Pharmaceutical process enginering: development od new technologies to prepare cleaner pharmaceutical compounds and their transfer from laboratory to the pilot scale.