The catalysts of Özgün Attila

Özgün Attila is a PhD student in the Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis department. 

Who are you and what do you do?
I am Özgün Attila and I am working as a PhD student at Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis department in the group of Bert Weckhuysen. I am working on nano-imaging of catalytic solids. Catalysts are substances that starts or speeds up chemical reactions. I am using zeolites as catalysts -microporous (pores less than 2 nm) minerals -  which are relevant to petrochemical industry.  

Where is your workplace?
The workplace is the microscopy lab of my department which is placed at David de Wied building in De Uithof campus. 

What is special about this workplace or about your research?
On this picture I do  methanol to hydrocarbon, MTH conversion reaction with my zeolites and I try to follow the reaction in ultraviolet light range with a UV-Vis Microscope in our lab.
My favorite part of my job is having a big range of experimental possibilities on the catalysts I am working with. In order to follow reaction dynamics and the reaction influence on catalysts,  in our group, we do X-ray experiments at different synchrotron facilities -extremely powerful source of X-rays-, we use different microscopes in order to see the visible light spectrum of these catalytic particles, we do mass spectrometry measurements... Being able to reach many different facilities and equipments make me able to implement my ideas into the experiments makes my PhD very fulfilling.