Nanocatalysis in Ionic Liquids

Martin Prechtl received the valuable Scientist NRW-Returnee Award 2009 and accepted an offer of the University of Cologne in Germany in 2010, where he also became Privatdozent and Heisenberg-Fellow in 2015. His research interest covers hydrogen storage and selective hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions with molecular and nanoscale catalysts in multiphase systems based on water or ionic liquids. Before moving to Cologne, he studied at the University of Wuppertal (Germany) and the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil). In São Paulo he did research studies together with João Valdir Comasseto (catalysis) and Omar El Seoud (cellulose chemistry), and in Wuppertal he worked on his diploma thesis about ligand design and catalysis under Hans-Josef Altenbach. Martin Prechtl performed his PhD studies in the field of organometallic chemistry and catalysis at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim/Ruhr in Germany under guidance of Walter Leitner and David Milstein on metal hydride complexes and received the doctoral degree from RWTH Aachen in 2007. Afterwards he worked as Feodor-Lynen-Fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre (Brazil) with Jairton Dupont and at the Humboldt University Berlin (Germany) with Thomas Braun and Erhard Kemnitz in the fields of nanoparticle synthesis and catalysis.