Mechanochemical synthesis allows in various cases the synthesis of materials which are otherwise difficult to access or complex to synthesize, such as rare earth metal hydrides, corundum with high surface areas, or supported metal catalysts. For such studies, milling vessels were equipped with various additional features, such as cryo-capabilities and remote sensors for pressure and temperature to follow the processes in the mill in more detail.
Mechanochemistry can also be used for catalytic reactions, such as the depolymerization of cellulose and lignocellulose, which proceeds fast and with high yield in ball mills. Moreover, running catalytic gas phase reactions under milling can lead to reactivity increases by several orders of magnitude, as proven for several cases.
The presentation will highlight the synthesis of interesting materials by milling and the opportunities in carrying out gas phase reactions under milling.
Ferdi SCHÜTHa
aMax-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim, Germany
Email: schueth@kofo.mpg.de
Biography
Ferdi Schüth was born in 1960, studied chemistry and law at Münster University, Germany, and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1988. After a post-doc with L. D. Schmidt at the University of Minnesota, he joined the group of K. Unger in Mainz for his habilitation. In 1995 he became full professor at Frankfurt University, and in 1998 moved to Mülheim to become director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung. He was vice president of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and until 2020 of the Max Planck Society. His research interests include catalysis, zeolites, porous materials, and energy-related topics.