SynCat@Beijing is in its fifth year, implying that several of our researchers are reaching the end of their contract, and are moving to new positions. As a result there are new opportunities for postdoctoral fellowships at SynCat@Beijing, and predominantly in the areas of fundamental catalysis and materials science. We are therefore specifically interested in candidates with experience in the use of UHV surface science techniques (e.g. scanning tunneling microscopy, photoemission,...
Published on: September 3, 2019
The online magazine “Research Features” published an article on SynCat@Beijing in their series “Thought Leaders.” The article is based on an interview with Hans Niemantsverdriet in the Spring of 2018, and is freely available online.
In the wake of the new year we are proud to announce yet another top journal article authored by a SynCat researcher: This time Ren Su had to do his best to convince a reviewer and an editor, and succeeded gloriously.
The joint SynCat – iNano Arhus paper on using solar light to produce fine chemicals was accepted by Nature Communications (Impact factor: 12.124) in October and is now available online and with open access.
"Light-tuned selective photosynthesis of azo- and azoxy-aromatics...
Published on: January 18, 2018
SynCat Researchers have been very successful in publishing articles in high-impact journals this year. The following two articles were accepted in the month of October.
Impact Factors - Angewandte: 11.994; JACS: 13.858;
Angewandte Chemie (International Edition)
As we reported earlier on the website, Xi Liu’s TEM work appeared in Angewandte Chemie:
“New Insights into the Activation and Deactivation of Au/CeZrO4 in the Low-Temperature Water-Gas Shift Reaction”, coauthored by a team of...
Published on: December 1, 2017On the 17th October of 2017, Angewandte Chemie published online a paper on “New Insights into the Activation and Deactivation of Au/CeZrO4 in the Low-Temperature Water-Gas Shift Reaction” authored by a team of scientists from Cardiff, SynCat@Beijing, and Lehigh University (UK).
Combining of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with stop-start scanning transmission electron microscopy (stop-start STEM), the team monitored the fate of gold species and particles on the catalyst throughout...
Published on: October 28, 2017
On Sept. 6th 2017, dr Shamil Kamilovich Shaikhutdinov, head of the 'Structure and Reactivity' group at the Deptartment of Chemical Physics of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society visited SynCat@Beijing. Shamil is an accomplished surface scientist whose work currently focuses on understanding the structure-reactivity relationships of well-defined thin oxide films grown on metal single-crystal supports.
Next to Shamil (on the right), SynCat@Beijing also welcomed Prof Bing Yang...
Published on: September 24, 2017Huairou, May 8, 2017. Professor Chunli Bai, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited Synfuels China, while accompanied by an entourage of scientific and administrative support staff of at least 20 persons. The visit's program included a short tour through the surface science and TEM facilities of SynCat@Beijing. Professor Bai, himself an accomplished surface scientist with considerable STM expertise, showed much interest in the UHV equipment, and asked many expert questions...
Published on: May 11, 2017
On Thursday, April 27, 2017, Richard van de Sanden, Director of the National Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER), from Eindhoven, the Netherlands visited Syncat@Beijing and Synfuels China.
His lecture “Electrifying the Future: the Enabling Role of Renewable Energy-driven Chemistry” addressed the future role of electricity for producing fuels and chemicals. His institute DIFFER, with a headcount of about 150 scientists and technicians, focuses on two major themes in...
Published on: May 7, 2017There is no doubt that catalysis is one of the most important disciplines for synthesis of fuels and chemicals in the petrochemical industry. SynCat@Beijing, serving not only as an international research institute, but also as expertise center for advanced courses in science, has always been open for academic communication. On 9th March, 2017, it was a great honour to host the SynCat@Beijing – DENSsolutions workshop, held at...
Published on: April 18, 2017
Four scientists at the SynCat@Beijing Research Institute have been selected as Beijing specially recruited experts by the organization department of Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPC and Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. The certificates and awards were distributed during a ceremony in Beijing Municipal on March 23rd, 2017.
The Beijing Overseas Talent Program aims to attract talents including Chinese and foreign experts to work in Beijing.
by Dr Tingbin Lim
The 3rd SynCat Ac@demy Catalysis School was held on 10th March 2017, at the SynCat@Beijing Research Institute. This third installment of the series of Catalysis School workshops continues the ongoing effort of SynCat@Beijing to be not just a centre of expertise in catalysis research, materials science and surface chemistry, but also an excellent centre for graduate students and budding scientists to be grounded in the basic concepts of what is catalysis and their surrounding...
Published on: March 14, 2017
On Friday, October 21, 2016, Prof Hans Niemantsverdriet received an honorary adjunct professorship from Jiangsu University in Zhenjiang (Jiangsu Province) in a small but dignified academic ceremony (see photo). The title, which is essentially valid for life, allows him to teach at the university and perform research at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, however, without obligation to do so. The appointment is an initiative of its professor Songjun Li, President of the Chinese...
Published on: October 24, 2016September 22, 2016. Foteini Sapountzi, together with Jose Gracia from SynCat@Beijing, and the colleagues from Syngaschem in The Netherlands have published a comprehensive and voluminous review about electrocatalysts for the splitting of water. They discuss electrolysis under alkaline and acid conditions, and at various temperatures, and provide an overview of established and promising new catalysts, plus an assessment of application potential and challenges for further development. The paper...
Published on: September 22, 2016
Electrolysis of water to form H2 and O2 is an increasingly important process in technology for the storage of renewable electricity in synthetic fuels. Formation of oxygen is invariably the slow step and mechanistically much more difficult than H2 evolution. The difference is certainly due to involvement of 4 electrons in the reaction, but there is another reason, associated with a particular property of O2, that seems to have been largely overlooked in the electrochemistry community,...
Published on: August 26, 2016Beijing, Aug 25, 2016. Two regular Grants and two Young Scientist Grants have been awarded by the National Science Foundation of China to research scientists at SynCat@Beijing, while several other staff members contributed to the proposals. Including those from the first round in 2015, SynCat now proudly counts five grant holders among its scientific staff. Our cordial congratulations for Drs Tianfu Zhang, Xi Liu, Xin Yu and Yanbin Shen.
Tianfu Zhang in front...
Published on: August 25, 2016
The ICC-2016, held from July 3-8 in the Chinese National Conference Center at the Oympic Grounds of Beijing, was attended by 2500 participants. The event was perfectly organized under the direction of Professor Can Li of Dalian, and greatly enjoyed by participants from all over the world.
SynCat@Beijing scientists Yunzhe Jiao, Yanbin Shen, Ren Su, Xi Liu and Julien Scalbert presented posters at the 16th ICC.
Photos Right: Yunzhe Jiao (left), Yanbin Shen and Ren Su with a passer by (right) in...
Published on: July 13, 2016July 2016 is conference month for the SynCat Staff, with three catalysis meetings in a row, namely the SynCat Symposium at SynCat@Beijing on July 1, the 16th International Catalysis Conference ICC-16 in Beijing, July 3-8, and the Syngas and Methanol Conversion SMC-2016 in Huairou, July 9-12.
The SynCat Symposium opened the series with a one day meeting in the Einstein Class Room, which was attended by 50-75 attendants. Synfuels General Manager Yong-Wang Li opened the event with an interesting...
One of SynCat@Beijing’s parallel goals to achieving world-class catalysis research is also to become a knowledge and expertise centre in the supporting disciplines of our research interests, like in characterization and the surface sciences. To that end, we aim to regularly organize short courses on catalysis, surface chemistry and materials science at the postgraduate level. Following our first successful SynCat Ac@demy autumn school held on 19th-20th Oct 2015, which focused on the...
Published on: May 20, 2016Since 2010 the website CatalysisCourse.Com has presented several video introductions to catalysis and catalyst characterization, while a separate section, sponsored by the Journal of Catalysis, offers videos on how to present science, in articles, posters and oral presentations. Lecturers are Hans Niemantsverdriet and Roel Prins (writing articles). The site, hosted by the Eindhoven University of Technology, has attracted much interest from all over the world, and on high days there were...
Published on: April 30, 2016
SynCat@Beijing will organize the 2nd Syncat Academy Catalysis School in Huairou-Beijing on May 9 and 10, 2016. External scientists at PhD, PostDoc or academic staff level are warmly welcome to attend this event together with research scientists from Synfuels China. The two-day program is titled "Characterization in Catalysis Research" and is dedicated to some of the most important techniques for catalyst characterization and surface science research.
For covering all relevant topics,...
Published on: April 13, 2016SynCat@Beijing has been founded to serve as an international institute on research, with a focus on the fundamental sciences behind coal-to-liquids technology (CTL). However, SynCat@Beijing wants to be more than a research institute alone. With the SynCat Ac@demy, it wants to position itself as a knowledge and expertise centre in the supporting disciplines of our research interests, which regularly organizes short courses on catalysis, surface chemistry and materials science at the...
Published on: October 29, 2015
Huairou/ Eindhoven, October 19. Syngaschem BV has launched a new website providing comprehensive information about the SynCat Academy’s Scientific Leadership training program. Prof. Niemantsverdriet used the Syncat Academy’s 1st course in fundamental catalysis and surface science as stage in Huairou to shortly present www.scientificleaders.com to its attendees – namely scientists from Syncat@Beijing, Synfuels China, and various Chinese Universities.
Supporting its scientists in...
October 15, 2015. Prof Graham Hutchings briefly visited SynCat@Beijing on October 15, together with his hosts Profs Ma and Liu of Peking University. After a tour of the building the guests had Dinner with the Cardiff alumni and staff at the Cineaste Hotel.
Prof Bowker arrived the same evening, to stay at SynCat for a week and teach at the first Catalysis School of the SynCat Academy.
The visit illustrates the excellent relations between the Cardiff Catalysis Institute, where also Hans...
Published on: October 19, 2015
SynCat@Beijing will organize the 1st Syncat Academy Catalysis School in Huairou-Beijing on October 19 and 20, 2015. External scientists at PhD, PostDoc or academic staff level are warmly welcome to attend this event together with research scientists from Synfuels China. The two-day program is titled "The Fundamentals of Surface Science for Catalysis" and is dedicated to the understanding of how catalysts work on the molecular level.
Our speakers from SynCat@Beijing will be reinforced by...
Published on: September 23, 2015September 17, 2015. The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has announced that SynCat@Beijing researcher dr Ren Su has been awarded with a "Young researcher grant". His project "The effect of surface decoration by metal nanoparticle on photocatalytic reaction mechanisms and related interfacial charge transfer kinetics" will be funded for three years with a budget of 240,000 RMB.
Ren Su joined SynCat@Beijing in February this year. He works on green approaches for sustainable...
Published on: September 17, 2015
August 24, 2015. Catalysis expert and long-time editor of the Journal of Catalysis Roel Prins visited SynCat@Beijing. The highlight of his stay at Huairou was his well attended lecture in the Einstein Lecture Theater, with the title “Eley-Rideal, the other mechanism in heterogeneous catalysis.” In contrast to the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanisms, where adsorbed species react to new molecules, the Eley-Rideal mechanism assumes that at least one of the reaction partners reacts by a direct...
Published on: August 31, 2015On June 11, Prof Roald Hoffmann, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, visited Synfuels China and SynCat@Beijing. Prof Hoffmann is the previous supervisor of SynCat’s Deputy Director, Xiaodong Wen, who spent several years at Cornell University as a postdoctoral fellow.
During his short tour at SynCat, Prof Hoffmann showed considerable interest in the STM equipment, and in the educational program at SynCat. He took ample time to meet the staff and take a joint group photo in the...
Published on: June 15, 2015
October 20-25, 2014. All staff and several guests met at the SynCat@Beijing Workshop in Huairou near Beijing. Synfuels China hosted the workshop in their headquarters, which enabled us to see the nearby SynCat@Beijing building. As it is close to completion now, an important aim of the workshop was to devise plans for the individual laboratories and infrastructure, and to work on the Research Program.
On the left: Impressions from the lab tour; On the right: The future management team of...
Published on: December 2, 2014Gilbère Mannie, working for Syngaschem BV in the iNano Group of Professor Jeppe Lauritsen in Aarhus University, Denmark, found a novel way to study atomic details of iron carbide surfaces by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Starting from a gold single-crystal surface, a time-tested convenient and chemically inert platform, he evaporates thin films of iron, which he then converts into carbides by exposing them to ethylene gas. The figure shows the...
Published on: September 3, 2014
May 26-28, 2014. Syngaschem BV has organized a workshop together with its partner, Synfuels China at ?Het Boordhuys? in Nuenen, The Netherlands, hosting around 25 people. The coming staff of SynCat@Beijing was present as well as Syngaschem?s Advisory Board, a delegation of Synfuels China. Various guests and collaborators participated as well.
A team of authors from Sasol Technology and Eindhoven University of Technology has recently published a lengthy and informative review on Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis, with among others descriptions of the process, and the preparation and characterization of cobalt and iron catalysts.
The reference:
Fischer?Tropsch Synthesis: Catalysts and Chemistry; van de Loosdrecht J., Botes F.G., Ciobica I.M., Ferreira A., Gibson P., Moodley D.J., Saib A.M., Visagie J.L., Weststrate C.J. and Niemantsverdriet...
Published on: February 24, 2014January 13-15, 2014. Synfuels China hosts a delegation of Syngaschem BV as well as further applicants for research scientist positions. Three new employees-to-be are recruited.
During an internal meeting, Syngaschem BV and Synfuels China Co LTD decide to brand the new research laboratory in China as SynCat@Beijing. Its official title will be ?The Synfuels China Laboratory for Fundamental Catalysis?, and its motto ?Science & Technology for Clean Fuels from Coal?.
November 20-22, 2013. Syngaschem BV has organized a workshop at Eindhoven and Nuenen, hosting as much as eleven applicants for junior and senior Research Scientist positions as well as a delegation of Synfuels China. In an open, symposium-like atmosphere Prof. Niemantsverdriet elaborates on the research strategy of Syngaschem and Mr. Felderhof on Syngaschem?s ideas on personal development, while the applicants present highlights of their scientific career. At least four scientist could be...
Published on: February 24, 2014October 4, 2013. Syngaschem BV and the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center at Aarhus University in Denmark sign a contract for collaborative research in the field of catalysis. For more than a year, Syngaschem's Dr Gilbere Mannie will perform scanning tunnelling microscopy studies on iron thin-film systems that serve as model systems for iron Fischer-Tropsch catalysts, under the skilled guidance of iNano's professor dr Jeppe Vang Lauritsen.
Published on: February 24, 2014
June 2013. Syngaschem BV is proud to announce the signing of a contract with CTL-technology leader Synfuels China from Beijing. The collaboration concerns a new laboratory in Beijing for a research program on the fundamentals of Fischer-Tropsch catalysts for CTL processes. The program will be based on surface science, molecular modeling, and in situ studies of model systems for iron-based Fischer-Tropsch catalysts, and will be under the direction of Profs Yong-Wang Li and Hans...
Published on: February 24, 2014