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RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN (RUG)

The University of Groningen is an internationally recognized research university that is currently in the top 100 on several influential ranking lists. It has a 400-year-old history but looks at the future as an advanced and international centre for education and research of high quality. Teaching is conducted fully in English, from Bachelor to Ph.D. programmes. The university has around 30 000 students (ca. 4000 from abroad; ca. 1000 PhD students), more than 5000 staff members of which ca. 500 professors (among them is the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2016, Prof. Ben Feringa), and an annual turnover of more than 614 million €. Research at the University of Groningen covers many fields of knowledge and is pursued across 10 faculties ranging from Arts to Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

Chemical Engineering Group

The Chemical Engineering group is active in various fields of research ranging from product technology to catalysis and green chemical reactor engineering. Currently the group consists of 7 scientific staff members (from assistant to full professors), 7 post-doc researchers, ca. 30 PhD students and 5 persons in the analytical and technical staff. The group is part of ENTEG (Engineering and Technology institute Groningen), which is one of the 12 research institutes of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. ENTEG aims at performing excellent research and teaching directed at the integration of fundamental and engineering sciences.

Team role and expertise in the project

The main role of RUG will be in the design and development of electrocatalysts for the reduction of CO2 to oxalate and formate, in close collaboration with ERIC and AVT. These tasks will involve the synthesis, caharacterization and testing of the electrocatalysts and their integration in the electrochemical unit. RUG will also lead the study of the valorization of oxalic acid into glycine. Besides these major tasks, RUG will be involved actively, or by providing feedback, in various other tasks of RECODE. Particularly, RUG will contribute to the modelling of the electrocatalytic sub-unit and its integration in the whole process. Moreover, RUG will lead and coordinate the training and dissemination activities.

People

Paolo Pescarmona

Principal Investigator