Catalytic Process Development for Renewable Materials

Green, clean and renewable are the hottest keywords for catalysis and industry. This handbook and ready reference is the first to combine the fields of advanced experimentation and catalytic process development for biobased materials in industry. It describes the entire workflow from idea, approach, research, and process development, right up to commercialization. A large part of the book is devoted to the use of advanced technologies and methodologies like high throughput experimentation, as well as reactor and process design models, with a wide selection of real-life examples included at each stage. The contributions are from authors at leading companies and institutes, providing firsthand information and knowledge that is hard to find elsewhere. This work is aimed at decision makers, engineers and chemists in industry, chemists and engineers working with/on renewables, chemists in the field of catalysis, and chemical engineers.

Dr. Pieter Imhof is currently VP Strategic Account Management at Avantium Chemicals B.V., after having held several positions in Research and Development, Technical Service, Marketing and Product Development both at Akzo Nobel Catalysts and Albemarle. Within Avantium, Pieter has been responsible for Global Business Development, Sales and Marketing for high throughput services and systems in both Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industry. Pieter obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees in Organometallic and Coordination Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. He has published and contributed to over 100 scientific and conference papers and patents.

Dr. Jan Cornelis van der Waal is Principal Scientist at Avantium Chemicals B.V. He studied Chemical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology (1987-1993) and received his Ph.D. at the same institute in 1998. After a postdoctoral assignment at the Royal Dutch Shell research and technology centre in Amsterdam for 2 years, he was involved in the foundation of Avantium Chemicals in 2000 and has since then worked for Avantium Technologies. Currently he is Principal Scientist Catalysts covering the area of biorenewable feedstocks conversion, in particular of oxygenates such as sugars, syn gas chemistries such as Fischer-Tropsch, Methanol and Ethanol synthesis, as well as selective oxidations and hydrogenations. He has published over 60 scientific and conference papers and patents.