Roy Maas

PhD candidate
University of Utrecht

Department

Institute of Sustainable and Circular Chemistry (ISCC)

Contact information

Room
David de Wied building – floor 4, open office

Email address
r.b.maas@uu.nl

Key expertises

Solid acid catalysis, radical-induced hydrocarbon cracking, Electron paramagnetic resonance

About me

As a creative and disciplined researcher, Roy worked his way up from studying Chemistry at Leiden University of Applied Sciences to a PhD position at Utrecht University under supervision of Prof. Dr. ir. Bert Weckhuysen. Along the way, he conducted an internship at Uppsala University under Prof. Sascha Ott and, another two internships at Leiden University under Prof. Dr. Sylvestre Bonnet and Dr. Dennis Hetterscheid. The drive by the passion of creating a sustainable and circular world economy.

About my research

Bilateral Project- Radical Initiated plastic cracking. In the chemical conversion of plastic waste to fuels and other valuable resources, the main challenge is improving the surface contact between the catalyst and the plastic. In this work as part of ARC CBBC, we investigate the role of radicals in carbon chain scission at elevated temperatures in the presence of radical initiators. For the analysis of radical Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) studies will be center stage. With the insights gained from this PhD project, plastic recycling will become closer to an industrial standard and reducing the amount of plastic waste.

Academic career

2020-2023: Master degree from the University of Leiden. Graduated with two internships on small molecule catalysis: one on electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction and the other on photocatalytic hydrogen evolution under Dr. Dennis Hetterscheid and Prof. Dr. Sylvestre Bonnet, respectively.

2015-2019: Bachelor degree from Leiden University of Applied Sciences. Graduated with a 10-month internship at Uppsala University under Prof. Dr. Sascha Ott on redox-active Metal-Organic frameworks