Two of the grand challenges of the 21st century are energy and sustainability. Within the LSK, we combine synthetic chemistry with development and application of new (synchrotron-based) characterization tools to contribute to solving these challenges. Catalysis plays an essential role to energy conversion and storage as well as to achieving sustainable chemicals conversion.
An important part of our research therefore focuses on providing understanding of a functioning catalyst with the ultimate aim to be able to design better catalytic processes. This reflects the general research theme within the laboratory, which is to provide understanding of a functioning respectively functional material. The laboratory is in particular strong in the development and application of in situ / operando time- and space-resolved measurements. For that, we maintain strong links to the synchrotron. We apply methods based on X-ray absorption and emission and X-ray photoemission spectroscopies, in addition to ptychographic imaging. High space-resolution is achieved in both the hard and soft X-ray regimes and diffractive and spectroscopic imaging is explored.