The Royal Society of Chemistry awards the 2020 RSC Green Chemistry Award to Prof. Paul Dyson from EPFL Lausanne for his major advances in the catalytic transformations of renewable substrates leading to industrial processes and products.
The goal of Professor Dyson’s team is to replace chemicals derived from fossil resources with chemicals derived from renewable materials and other waste streams to facilitate the transition towards a sustainable circular economy. To achieve this goal they need to understand how these renewable materials are transformed at a molecular level, and armed with this knowledge, they are able identify bottlenecks and then design new catalysts that overcome these bottlenecks. In his own words, “Basically, we have a lot of fun, learn a lot, create new knowledge and occasionally discover something useful.”
Source: rsc.org
Céline Wittwer, SCS
25.07.2020