Active Layers and Catalyst Technologies
About
The team "Active Layers and Catalyst Technologies" focuses on the development of heterogeneous catalyst systems for the efficient storage and utilization of renewable energy. Chemical hydrogen storage using Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHC) thereby plays an important role. Innovative and efficient catalysts should have high activities, selectivities and stabilities to enable, for example, high hydrogen release rates at low temperatures and high cyclability of the LOHC in this context.
Research Topics
The technical implementation of the LOHC concept poses some challenges to the catalysts used. Especially the endothermic dehydrogenation requires comparatively high reaction temperatures and the provision of the reaction heat at the appropriate temperature level. The realization of an efficient hydrogen release at the lowest possible temperature and an increase in overall efficiency by new
process routes represent central research topics in our team. In the context of catalyst development, we involve all areas starting with synthesis and characterization up to reaction engineering investigations on laboratory and pilot plant scale in order to derive structure-reactivity relationships. The aim is to understand the causes of the experimentally observed activity, selectivity and stability towards different mechanisms of catalyst deactivation and to use these specifically to develop new materials or optimize existing materials. With regard to a later application, an up‑scaling of the catalyst production as well as the application as an active coating are also part of our research field.
