What do you consider to be chemistry’s greatest achievement or most important discovery?
The greatest scientific discoveries are often made at the boundaries between different scientific fields. For me, one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs was the elucidation of the structure of DNA, which has had immense implications for the fields of biology, chemistry and the medical sciences, even though it was a physical method that unlocked its structure. In addition, the ability to (almost) rationally modify the structure chemically and thus have control over its function is something that is practised in many scientific fields beyond DNA.

What do you focus on in your research and what aspects of it are evident or usable in everyday life?
The main focus of our research is to improve our understanding of how a heterogeneous catalyst functions and thus design new catalysts and catalytic processes. As over eighty percent of all products are produced with the aid of a catalyst somewhere along the line and catalysts are widely used in the conversion, storage and use of energy, these developments have a direct impact on the development of a sustainable society.

What fascinated you most about chemistry?
I’ve always been very interested in the natural sciences, but chemistry has always fascinated me most because of its highly creative nature. Chemistry is our tool to create matter and thus control function.

How will your research field develop? Where does the potential lie?
Two of the main tasks of heterogeneous catalysis are to facilitate the switch from fossil feedstock for energy and chemicals to a sustainable one and prevent environmentally unfriendly exhaust, which requires the development of new catalysts and processes. Thus, the field is developing in two directions: the first is to gain control of structure on all scales, from the atomic level up to large-scale industrial reactors. On an atomic level, the synthesis of defined structures will especially provide new, unique catalytic functions, which we can only dream of nowadays. The second direction is the extension of our instrumentation toolbox to determine the exact structure of functioning catalysts and thus provide guidelines as to what the structure to be synthesized is. The toolbox ranges from developing new lab-based equipment to large-scale facilities, the combination of which enables structural determination on all scales.

What term from chemistry should everyone know by the end of the International Year of Chemistry and why?
Element. The elements of Mendeljeev’s periodic table are the building blocks of chemistry; they control all matter, function and ultimately life.