Understanding the proces of electrochemical reactions is essential to improve the technology for the energy transition. Fuel cell cars, for example use hydrogen produced from the electrolysis of water. Mariana Monteiro did fundamental research on the process and won two prizes with her thesis.

Electrochemist Marc Koper has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million euros for research into chemical reactions driven by electrodes and electricity. He hopes that new insights will make it into the textbooks and help design green processes, such as making fuel from greenhouse gas.

Marc Koper, Professor of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, has been elected as President Elect of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE). He will be President Elect for two years starting January 2019, followed by two years as President and two years as Immediate Past President.

The Gouy-Chapman theory describes what happens near an electrode when it is in contact with a salt solution, but this description does not match reality. Researcher Kasinath Ojha, assistant professor Katharina Doblhoff-Dier and professor Marc Koper present a new version. ‘The next generation of textbooks…

On 24 September the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) in Leiden will launch the new version of the Pesticides Atlas in cooperation with Rijkswaterstaat and Royal HaskoningDHV. The online tool is now faster, more user-friendly, more accessible and all data can be downloaded directly. Users can…

Yuvraj Birdja converted CO2 to formic acid to store energy in a sustainable way, with different catalysts. With this new knowledge, scientists are a step closer in industrially converting CO2 to chemicals and fuels. This can help reduce CO2 emission and the greenhouse effect.

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Leiden Professor Marc Koper will be carrying out research on the chemical process underlying tin coating in order to optimise the quality of tin coatings. He has been awarded a subsidy of 285,000 euros from the STW Technology Foundation and Tata Steel.

The current hepatitis B vaccines need to be stored and transported under refrigerated conditions (2-8 degrees C). This dependence on a cold-chain is highly challenging in areas where hepatitis B virus infections are endemic.

Promotor: V. Vitelli, Co-promotor: J. Paulose

Bicarbonate buffer is largely found in nature due to its ability to regulate pH variations around neutral values. As the pH changes, so does the speciation of the buffer.

A catalyst: normally a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, without adding molecules to this reaction. Scientists from the group of Prof. Marc Koper of Leiden University and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn of MIT now discovered that in specific reactions that need oxygen, catalysts called metal oxides…

Three Leiden professors have recently been awarded the most prestigious scientific accolade in the Netherlands: Maria Yazdanbakhsh and Marc Koper have been awarded a Spinoza Prize and Judi Mesman a Stevin Prize. They received their prizes on 13 October.

Cars are equipped with catalysts to disarm toxic exhaust gases. Platinum plays an important role there. Leiden physicists and chemists have now for the first time seen the mechanism behind a platinum catalyst. With a fundamental understanding of the process, scientists can use this rare material more…

Electrochemist Marc Koper has won a special award: the Allen J. Bard Award in Electrochemical Science. 'Allen Bard has always been a great example to me, so it is extra special to win this award.' The award will be granted by the Electrochemical Society, at their half-yearly conference next year in…

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotores: Dr. ing. M.G. Vijver, J.P.M. Vink

A discovery made in Leiden helps not only to make natural gas from CO2 but also to store renewable energy. Research by Professor Marc Koper and PhD student Jing Shen shows how this process can be implemented in a cost-effective and controllable way. Nature Communications, 2 september 2015.

Professor of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry Marc Koper has been appointed as member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW). 'Very honourable, I see this as a confirmation of my work,’ says Koper.

Smooth platinum electrodes roughen and wear when subjected to repeated cycles of oxidation and reduction, which causes nanometer-scale mounds to grow. Leiden chemists Leon Jacobse and Marc Koper, together with physicist Marcel Rost, discovered the exact details, using a unique tunneling microscope.

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Density functional theory (DFT) with so-called semi-local exchange has been remarkable accurate for some dissociative chemisorption reactions on metals, but it has notoriously failed for others. A team of researchers from the University of California at Irvine and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry have…

Conference

If you could convert CO2 into building blocks for other molecules with the help of electricity, you could make the chemical industry considerably more sustainable. Leiden chemists have unravelled a fundamental part of this process and applied this knowledge in a real device, as they write in Nature…

The Leiden Institute of Chemistry actively participates in several national research schools for MSc and PhD students. These schools are consortia that stimulate collaboration between research groups of the different participating Dutch universities. The research schools also offer advanced training…

The surface of platinum electrodes changes much more during use than was previously thought. In a collaboration between the Leiden Institutes of Chemistry and Physics, chemists Leon Jacobse, Yi-Fan Huang and Marc Koper, and physicist Marcel Rost have been able to show this for the first time. Publication…

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Studying surfaces of solid materials: it may not seem relevant to energy consumption, but it is. Marcel Rost studies how platinum electrodes wear out. Those electrodes are a crucial component in the fuel cells of hydrogen-powered cars. ‘We need to make the switch from fossil fuel energy to hydrogen.…

Scientists have long been puzzled why it is easier to produce hydrogen from water in an acidic environment than in an alkaline environment. Marc Koper comes with an explanation: the reason is the electric field at the surface of the catalyst, which is larger in an alkaline environment, as he writes…

Bringing together chemists and physicists to thoroughly investigate how electrochemical processes work on the smallest scale. That is the goal of the new Advanced Nano-electrochemistry Institute of the Netherlands, or ANION for short. The consortium receives a Gravitation funding of 23.6 million euros…

A tenacious postdoc researcher persuaded Professor Marc Koper to research the oxygen reduction reaction. In Koper's eyes, there was little of interest there. But they promptly discovered a whole new way to improve fuel cells on hydrogen and oxygen. Their article appeared in Nature Catalysis on 07 Ju…

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Climate change and energy transition were an important theme of the Dutch provincial elections: how should we invest in new sources of energy? Leiden University conducts multidisciplinary research into renewable energy solutions. Read more about this in the ‘Renewable Energy’ research dossier.

Majorana fermions in superconductors are the subgap quasiparticle excitations that are their own antiparticles.

Professor Marc Koper researches how you can use electrical energy to make or break chemical bonds. He has just been awarded a Spinoza Prize, the Netherlands’ highest personal science award, for his fundamental research into how this form of electrolysis works.

An attractive feature of the MSc Chemistry programme at Leiden University is the great flexibility of the study programme, allowing students to put together a tailor-made programme following their personal interests. Within the limits set by the programme, students can make their own choices and adjust…

Promotor: H.V.J. Linnartz

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Metals surfaces form a group of effective catalysts for the reaction of small molecules such as hydrogen (H2).

Eleven researchers of the Faculty of Science are on the 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list of Clarivate Analytics. Only 0.1 per cent of researchers are included in this list, literally making them one in a thousand.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. A. Bouwstra, Prof.dr. W. Jiskoot

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Contact Metals in Catalysis, Biomimetics & Inorganic Chemisrty