Promotor: A. Doelman, Co-promotor: J.D.M. Rademacher

Promotor: Arjen Doelman, Co-promotor: Vivi Rottschäfer

Promotores: Arjen Doelman, Jens Rademacher, Max Rietkerk

One of the effects of climate change is the phenomenon of desertification, a process that occurs in semi-arid and arid areas and causes land degradation as well as vegetation loss. Due to the lack of resources, vegetation self-organizes to sustain itself by forming large-scale spatial patterns.

Vast, often populated, areas in dryland ecosystems face the dangers of desertification.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Schaye & Prof.dr. C. Steidel (California Institute of Technology)

This thesis describes the use of a combined approach of computational and experimental techniques to gain novel insights to understand the glycosylation reaction and its reactive intermediates.

Heterogeneous catalysis is essential to many industrial applications. These catalysts are often comprised of supported nanoparticles, which contain various different surface sites.

How can we make the production of chlorine cheaper and more friendly for the environment?

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma, Co-promotor: R.N. Frese

This thesis has shed light on some of the ways in which the local electrolyte composition can differ from the bulk and how these changes in the local reaction environment can determine the activity and/or selectivity of two important electrocatalytic reactions, namely, electrochemical CO2 reduction…

The glycosylation reaction is a pivotal reaction in creating new and complex oligosaccharides.

In this dissertation, the synthesis and characterization of a series of iron complexes based on different ligand platforms are described.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E. Bouwman

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-Promotor: L.B.F. Juurlink

The research presented in this thesis makes use of small molecules (as H2 , D2 and O2 ) on well-defined single crystal surfaces (flat Pt(111), flat Cu(211) and curved Pt(111)) to elucidate the role of surface structure and degrees of freedom in the reactant in specific surface reactions.

A difficulty of studies on chemical kinetics are the reaction time scales and detection of their intermediates.

Hetterscheid

On a referendum held on May 21, 2006, 55.5% of voters in Montenegro voted in favor of their country’s independence. While in numerical terms the outcome shows overwhelming support for independent Montenegro, from a normative standpoint it was a narrow win. The normative framework that regulated rules…

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are used as a current carrying substrate in investigation of current-induced forces in a low-temperature STM (chapter 2).

This perspective addresses four challenges facing theorists whose aim is to make quantitatively accurate predictions for reactions of molecules on metal surfaces, and suggests ways of meeting these challenges, focusing on dissociative chemisorption reactions of H2, N2, and CH4.

Although it is often assumed that the stereochemistry in Ugi multicomponent reactions is determined in the final Mumm rearrangement step, experimental and computational evidence that Ugi reactions on hydroxylated pyrrolines proceed under kinetic control is reported.

Promotores: G.W. Canters, T.J. Aartsma

Koper

Promotor: E. Bouwman, Co-promotor: S. Bonnet

The local ordering of atoms at the surface of a metallic particle determines its catalytic activity and selectivity. As energy systems of the future will be based on efficient catalytic conversion of small molecules in closed cycles, we study how structural effects of catalysts can be used to our ad…

In this thesis, we study travelling waves in stochastic reaction-diffusion equations. We extend techniques from the deterministic theory for travelling waves to apply to the stochastic version, which allows us to compute the stochastic wave speed and shape, and draw conclusions on the stability of the…

In this thesis chemical and physical processes in the ice mantles on interstellar dust grains are studied.

Organizations often announce their protest activities prior to their implementation to mobilize awareness, recruit supporters, and receive media attention. We are interested in the effectiveness of protest announcements—that is, under what conditions governments make concessions to avoid having an announced…

Human civilization consumes a huge amount of fossil fuels, which has resulted in an atmospheric CO2 level which has not been higher in over 800 millennia.

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.J. Kroes

Several techniques are explored for going beyond the born-oppenheimer static surface model for molecule-surface reactions.

Methods for accurately computing the interaction of molecules with metal surfaces are critical to understanding and thereby improving heterogeneous catalysis.

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.V.J. Linnartz, Co-Promotores: S. Ioppolo, H.M. Cuppen

Consequences for sediment stability and seston trapping

In this dissertation iron-based homogeneous catalysts were synthesized, characterized and investigated for water oxidation activity.

Catalysis is of extreme relevance in the production of everyday materials and plays a central role in many aspects of our life.

The dissociative chemisorption of methane on metal surfaces is of fundamental and practical interest, being a rate-limiting step in the steam reforming process. The reaction is best modeled with quantum dynamics calculations, but these are currently not guaranteed to produce accurate results because…

Ineke Smit defended her thesis on 17 September 2019

An accurate description of reactive scattering of molecules on metal surfaces often requires the modeling of energy transfer between the molecule and the surface phonons. Although ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) can describe this energy transfer, AIMD is at present untractable for reactions with…

This thesis describes how complex and real-world relevant analytical solutions can be found starting from a simple Nagumo problem posed on one or two-dimensional lattices.

Different groups of hominins probably learned from one another much earlier than was previously thought, and that knowledge was also distributed much further. A study by archaeologists at Leiden University on the use of fire shows that 400,000 years ago knowledge and skills must already have been exchanged…

Mathematical and computational analysis of the dynamics of polar transport of the plant hormone auxin.

The

A catalyst: normally a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, without adding molecules to this reaction. Scientists from the group of Prof. Marc Koper of Leiden University and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn of MIT now discovered that in specific reactions that need oxygen, catalysts called metal oxides…

PhD Defence

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotors: A.I. Yanson, L.B.F. Juurlink

A semi-empirical version of the specific reaction parameter approach to density functional theory (SRP-DFT) has been remarkably successful at predicting dissociative chemisorption probability vs. incidence energy curves for reactions on metal surfaces. New quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations on the…

Sustainable energy from wind and solar is most readily available near the sea.