Doctoral Prize by the Bottling Family Foundation 2022 for Dr. Marc Ziemba
Dr. Marc Niklas Ziemba from the field of Physical Chemistry (Prof. Dr. C. Hess) is awarded the doctoral prize for his outstanding dissertation titled COₓ Catalysis on CeO₂ and In₂O₃ Based Catalysts: Combining Operando Spectroscopy and DFT.
In light of high CO2 emissions and their climate-damaging effects, Mr. Ziemba addressed in his dissertation the utilization of CO2 as a non-fossil carbon source through heterogeneously catalyzed CO2 hydrogenation. By combining innovative methodological approaches of operando spectroscopy with density functional theory calculations, he successfully gained fundamentally new mechanistic insights into the functioning of (doped) oxide catalysts based on CeO2 and In2O3. This represents a significant contribution to the knowledge-based development of improved catalysts for CO2 activation.