Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Fascinating oxidation chemistry with iron: from active site to catalysis." "Bert Sels" "Sustainable Catalysis and Engineering (CSCE), Quantum Chemistry and Physical Chemistry" "Fe- and Cu-zeolites are active catalysts for direct catalytic decomposition of NO and N2O and for selective oxidation of hydrocarbons. While bent [Cu-O-Cu]2+ cores were recently identified as the active sites in direct NO and N2O decomposition and in selective oxidation chemistry, Fe sites though very active, have not been characterized in such detail. It is the goal of this project to do so in a joint effort between COK, CCC and Stanford. The main reasons for searching the active site of Fe catalysts are: (1) exploitation of environmental catalysis with Fe zeolites for a sustainable society; (2) Cu- and Fe-enzymes in micro-organisms perform the oxidation quite efficiently. A comparison of active sites in enzymes and heterogeneous catalysts, in casu zeolites, will be quite fascinating to foresee selective oxidation catalysis; (3) COK recently obtained preliminary spectroscopic data, which go beyond the state of the art, therefore promising a successful scientific outcome. So far, the active O atoms in Fe-zeolite have been denoted as a black-box “a-O”. They are obtained by activation of auto-reduced/reduced Fe-zeolite with N2O. The precursor of a-O is a-Fe, believed to contain Fe(II). Our strategy is to fully characterize, jointly by worldwide unique experimental and theoretical techniques, this a-Fe precursor and the active site a-O. Then we can proceed with the reactivity study en route to the the fundamental of selective oxidation and environmental catalysis." "Conference-Summer School (July 2016): Summer School on Analytical Chemistry, Metrology and Accreditation" "Marc Elskens" "Chemistry, Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Earth System Sciences" "Summer School on Analytical Chemistry, Metrology and Accreditation" "Rethinking Roman Nutrition. Assessing the nutritional biochemistry and stable isotope chemistry of archaeobotanical cereals and pulses from Roman Egypt." "Paul Erdkamp" "Chemistry, Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, History, Archeology, Arts, Philosophy and Ethics" "Cereals and pulses have been important staples in human diets since the Neolithic Revolution. Despite recognition of their role as energy suppliers, the nutritional appraisal by archaeologists and historians of especially cereals has been far from positive. Cereals have been held responsible for the alleged poor nutritional status of the Romans. Leading in the formation of this view were the results of modern biochemical analyses of cereals, which indicated that their micronutrient content was very low. Recent work in cereal biochemistry that compared modern cereals with their 19th-century herbarium counterparts, has however shown this low micronutrient-content is largely a side-effect of the Green Revolution of the mid-20th century. It is therefore likely that Roman cereals have been nutritionally underestimated. This study aims to obtain direct data on the nutritional qualities of ancient cereals to test this. We use a unique perfectly preserved, desiccated archaeological seeds from sealed granaries from the village of Karanis in Roman Egypt, presently at the Kelsey Museum, Ann Arbor. This innovative study may revolutionize our perspective on Roman diet and nutrition. The biochemical analysis is expected to show a higher micronutrient content in cereals and pulses. In addition, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis will be performed on the carbonised seeds from Karanis to better understand agricultural practices and the ultimate economic decline of the site." "Sustainable chemistry for the synthesis of fine chemicals" "Christian Stevens" "Department of Green Chemistry and Technology" "The chemical industry in Flanders is of major importance at several levels. It provides 10% of all employment in Flanders, is home of the largest petrochemical cluster in Europe and is the main location of 10 out of the world’s top 20 chemical companies. The chemical industry stands for more or less 50% of all R&D expenditures in Flanders and for 30% of all industrial investments in Belgium. Flanders is located at the heart of the Antwerp-Rotterdam-Rhine-Ruhr area, Europe’s strongest industrial mega-cluster with 80% for Europe’s purchasing power located within a radius of 800 km (Flanders Investment & Trade). Recently, some major investments have been made. In 2017, Kaneka strengthened its future in the region by announcing an investment of EUR 34 million in a third modified silicone (MS) polymer production line at its facility in Westerlo. Borealis is investing 1 billion Euro into the construction of a new propylene factory in Antwerp. The British chemical concern INEOS will be funneling 3 billion Euro into the expansion of its local chemical plant, which represents the largest chemical investment in Europe of the past two decades. The pinnacle of the investment is an ethane gas cracker, one of the largest in the world. No need to say that chemical research is a key area in Flanders, and that sustainability in the chemical sector is crucial for a very densely populated region. Furthermore, it will be essential to continue to innovate our chemical production in order to remain competitive compared to emerging (and already existing) industrial powers such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia. Indeed, Asia’s chemical production has already surpassed that of the rest of the world. Contributing to this, China is by far the biggest chemical producer in sales. On top of that, the growth in the global economy has slowed down in recent years. Generally speaking, business investment is weak, cross-border trade in goods and services is dwindling, and physical goods are under persistent deflationary pressures. Therefore, the outlook for growth in Europe remains unpromising, as demand continues to be weak. In this context, Flanders need to be aware of the changing world and invest in research and innovation. The European Commission is now developing the Horizon Europe program in order to stimulate the necessary internal changes to create ""a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy"". The development of new technologies to produce chemicals in a sustainable way will be a key issue to keep the European chemical industry in a strong position. If Flanders wants to maintain an important role in the European chemical industry, it will have to develop competitive tools to enable a more efficient and sustainable production. The vision and creating new possibilities; It is crucial for the academic community in Flanders to build up knowledge and to develop a sustainable technology platform for the transition to a more sustainable industry. This proposal concerns a continuation of the scientific research community for the sustainable production of fine chemicals and thus fits directly into this picture. A community for scientific exchange and collaboration is essential, as it is not possible for a single research group to deal with the numerous and varied facets of sustainable chemistry/technology. Only through joint stimulation and teamwork, the most effective solutions can be created to help to address the enormous challenges ahead. The sustainable production of fine chemicals (and building blocks for polymers) is a broad area that encompasses many varied and different research areas, including new synthetic methodologies, (bio)catalysis, flow chemistry, electrochemistry, photochemistry, renewable resources, new ways of energy transfer, and the combination of all these techniques in order to optimize the complete production process. Each area requires specific and expert equipment, which calls for collaboration and integration. The different research groups brought together in this scientific community are each world-leading in one or more areas of chemical sustainability. The principal idea of the research community is to increase the interaction between the research groups and to combine their specific expertise in order to obtain more generic sustainable approaches and processes. The continuation of a community resource; The continuation of a research community will provide a forum for future collaboration in the area of sustainability and stimulate in depth discussion on the integration of research areas. Efforts will be made to get detailed information of the chemical industry to identify real problems related to processes that have a big environmental and/or economic footprint. This approach also complements the efforts being undertaken within the framework of Catalisti, the spearhead cluster for the chemical industry in Flanders. The initiative is now being broadened by top international experts in certain areas of sustainable chemistry and does not focus only on topics that need to be immediately implemented industrially, but also focuses on basic research leading to industrial application on a longer term, which will positively influence the development and the applicability of sustainable chemistry in our region. The working group will consider the process dimension (Green Engineering) as well as a holistic extension of the Green Chemistry innovations. Furthermore, it will create additional opportunities to educate doctoral students and postdocs by allowing direct contact with a wider selection of international experts, which will aid to influence their thinking and their future careers. ""Benign by Design"" needs to take the place of ""end-of-pipe solutions"" for sustainability problems. The initial aim of this community is to organize international workshops on sustainable chemistry in order to disseminate the results of the research of the different collaborating partners and to give training on specific topics for PhD students and postdocs of the Flemish community (not limited to the partners of this application). The aim is to allow leverage of the group activities by linking to existing networks which concentrate on sustainability, such as the Ghent University Centre of Sustainable Chemistry, the International Conference on Renewable Resources and Biorefineries, the Belgian Merck Organic Chemistry Symposium on fine chemicals, the international Belgian Organic Synthesis Symposium (BOSS), the Global Green Chemistry Centers Network (G2C2) … The interaction between the expert research groups in specific areas of sustainable chemistry will lead to a competitive advantage for the Flemish chemical industry and form an asset for young researchers who have experience in sustainable chemistry." "Bio based factory: Sustainable chemistry from wood" "Fossil oil depletion imposes a societal driven shift to non-edible biomass as a renewable feedstock for chemicals. Wood is among the most abundant carbon sources on earth, and is ideal to address this challenge. Wood contains (hemi)cellulose (carbohydrates) and lignin, a polymeric network of arenes. Biorefineries mostly focus on the former, using lignin only as low value fuel. This project's ambitious aim is to transform lignin into high-value chemicals and polymers, starting with the very challenging selective depolymerization of lignin. In KULeuven's ‘lignin-first' concept, even before carbohydrate valorization, wood is treated in a selective way to recover just 4 biobased aromatic molecules in high yield. Next, selective catalytic (de)functionalization of the 4 molecules will lead to catechol and pyrogallol. Innovative synthetic methods (aminations, reductions, C(sp2)-O cross-coupling and C(sp2/sp3)-H functionalization) will transform these into important chemicals (substituted phenols, anilines etc). Finally, biobased chemicals are coupled with CO2 to form valuable functional polymers. Modelling, e.g. via Advanced Molecular Dynamics will allow to rationalize and even predict reactivity and selectivity in realistic operating conditions, lending strong support to the development of new concepts for transformation of aromatics." "Assessing environmental and biotic change before and after asteroid impact at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary" "Robert Speijer, Philippe Claeys" "KU Leuven, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Earth System Sciences, Chemistry" "In a recent synthesis, it was convincingly shown that the impact of a large asteroid in the Gulf of Mexico coincided with the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary and with the sudden biodiversity decline known as the K/T mass extinction (Schulte et al. 2010). This mass extinction set the stage for the development of modern marine and terrestrial ecosystems and biota (e.g., Krug et al., 2009; Meredith et al., 2011). Yet, extinction patterns of various fossil groups (especially metazoans) are considered incompatible with an instantaneous cataclysm decimating life and suggest environmental deterioration prior to the K/T boundary (e.g., Macleod et al., 1997). Accordingly, various studies suggest that gradual but distinct climatic and/or sea-level changes lead to an accumulation of environmental stress perturbing latest Cretaceous ecosystems prior to the K/T boundary and triggering a longer term onset of extinctions (e.g. Keller, 2008). In this project, we study several K/T boundary successions and especially focus on assessing the extent and effects of gradual environmental and biotic changes in continental margin marine ecosystems by evaluating quantitative microfossil records in three separated study areas, the US Gulf Coast, Tunisia and Turkey. These studies are complemented by geochemical analyses to identify climatic and paleoceanographic instabilities prior to the K/T boundary." "Integrated versatile platform for sample preparation, 2D gas chromatographic separation and Orbitrap mass spectrometric identification and quantification of (semi-)volatile organic compounds in environmental, food and biological samples" "Kristof Demeestere" "Department of Biotechnology, Department of Green Chemistry and Technology, Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health" "The understanding of the function, fate and behavior of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds, (semi-)VOCs, in natural and technical environments is crucial to cope with several challenges related to sustainable development (SDGs) we face today in our society. Many of these compounds are important air and water contaminants and pose a significant threat to health and environment. They are also defense-related secondary metabolites in plants playing a crucial role in growth, stress tolerance and crop yield in primary production. In food products, they serve as early indicators for microbial spoilage or lipid oxidation which is essential to assure safe food preservation and avoidance of food spillage. To gain fundamental understanding in the underlying molecular processes, it is necessary to assure reliable (semi-)VOCs identification and quantification in diverse and complex matrices at (ultra-)trace concentration levels. To push current frontiers of knowledge towards higher levels in the envisaged multidisciplinary research, an integrated and versatile analytical platform is needed that enables automated and standardized sample preparation, comprehensive two-dimensional chromatographic separation and high resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometric detection of (semi-)VOCs in environmental, food and biological matrices." "The calm before the storm? Biotic responses to climate and environmental change in the final chapter of the Cretaceous Period" "Johan Vellekoop, Philippe Claeys" "Chemistry, Earth System Sciences, Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry" "While it is convincingly shown that the Chicxulub impact (~66 Ma) caused the sudden biodiversity decline known as the CretaceousPaleogene boundary mass extinction, various studies have suggested that gradual, but distinct, environmental changes related to the terminal Cretaceous phase of the Deccan Traps Large Igneous Province led to an accumulation of ecological stress in the last 0.5 million years before the impact, priming global ecosystems for extinctions. However, the lack of clear, chronostratigraphically wellconstrained, high-resolution biotic and environmental records preceding the last million years of the Cretaceous makes it difficult to evaluate whether the amplitude of the perturbations in climate and biota caused by this phase exceeded background Maastrichtian variability. Therefore, I propose to generate a series of geographically widespread, stratigraphically well-constrained, high resolution records of climatological and biological changes in shelf seas, throughout the Maastrichtian, using clumped isotopes, dinoflagellate cysts, calcareous nannoplankton and macrofossils, focusing on the time interval before the terminal Cretaceous phase of Deccan Traps. The resulting dataset will allow me to distinguish climatic and biotic perturbations from the background Maastrichtian variability, and test whether gradual changes across the Maastrichtian exerted any progressive environmental stress towards the K-Pg boundary." "Reconstructing the environmental influence of large igneous province volcanism using osmium isotopes" "Lawrence Percival" "Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Chemistry" "Studying episodes of mass extinction and abrupt climate change from the geological past is key for understanding the impact of anthropogenic carbon emissions on global climate and species extinctions in the modern. Most of these past events overlapped with times of huge volcanic activity (millions of times greater than modern eruptions). Because of the impact of comparatively tiny recent eruptions on global weather (eg. the eruption of Pinatubo in 1991), these massive volcanic events have been proposed as the cause of past climate change/extinctions. The mechanism for linking volcanism with climate/extinctions is based on huge volcanic carbon emissions to the atmosphere, but relies on knowing the timing and volume of erupted lavas with respect to climate/biospheric degradation. To constrain these parameters, we will analyse the osmium-isotope composition of sedimentary records of past climate/extinction events. Osmium (Os) is a trace metal in sediments, where its isotopic composition can be influenced by influx of the element from weathering of lavas. Thus, Os-isotopes can be used in sediments as a proxy of volcanism. The simplicity of the natural Os cycle also means that the changing volume of erupted lavas can be modelled from Os-isotope trends, allowing determination of whether the most voluminous eruptions coincided precisely with times of climate change/extinction. Establishing these relationships will greatly aid understanding of past climate change/extinction events." "Analysis tools for biomedical and environmental applications: development and application of a multi-modal synchrotron based chemical imaging platform" "Laszlo Vincze" "Department of Chemistry" "The goal of this research project is the development of novel analytical methods for nano-analysis of biomedical and environmental samples using synchrotron radiation (SR) based X-ray imaging methodologies. The envisaged applications comprise optimization of peritoneal carcinomatosis treatment (Prof dr W. Ceelen) and assessing the influence of deep-sea mining on the marine eco-system (Prof dr A. Van Reusel). X-ray based methodologies such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) constitute a crucial part of the toolkit of scientists for non-destructive 3D analysis. This project aims at developing a novel SR based setup incorporating multiple techniques in the future, upgraded ESRF DUBBLE beamline, focussing on (sub-)microscopic 3D analysis by XRF and XAS combined with X-ray tomography. These techniques will expand the set of analysis tools available to scientists at this productive beamline, so far mainly devoted to bulk analysis, paving the way to nanoscale chemical characterization. Multimodal instruments have become the new standard at high-end beamlines of SR facilities. This project aims to add DUBBLE to this impressive list. Due to the major ESRF accelerator upgrade completed in September 2020, the timing to develop a novel setup is ideal. This project will ensure DUBBLE users to access a new portfolio of microanalytical tools at the renewed DUBBLE beamline."