Sebastian Haben

PhD candidate
Utrecht University

Department

Inorganic Chemistry

Contact information

Room
Vening Meineszgebouw C – 2nd floor

Email address
s.haben@uu.nl

Key expertises

Heterogeneous catalysis, operando spectroscopy, data analysis, coding

About me

I was born in Germany near Munich where also obtained both my Bachelors and Masters degree at the Technical University of Munich. At the beginning of 2019 I started with my PhD in the group of Prof. B. M. Weckhuysen.

About my research

Methane is a cheap and abundant carbon feedstock which has the potential to become the source for lower olefins and aromatics in an atom- and energy-efficient way. The Methane dehydroaromatization (MDA) reaction is especially suitable for this task, as methane transformation is achieved without any oxidants, resulting in excluding the greenhouse gas CO2 as a reaction product and instead producing hydrogen. Unfortunately, the catalyst usually used for the MDA reaction suffers from rapid deactivation due to coking. Within this project I aim to utilize and develop various operando techniques to gain fundamental insight into the working catalyst to increase its activity and stability.

Academic career

PhD candidate Since 2019: PhD candidate in the group of Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis at Utrecht University, under the supervision of Prof. B.M. Weckhuysen Master student 2014 - 2018: Master student at the Technical University of Munich. Master Thesis under the supervision of Prof. M. Groll. Bachelor student 2011 - 2014: Bachelor student at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Bachelor Thesis under the supervision of Prof. B. Rieger.

ARC CBBC publications

Operando UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy insights into the methane dehydroaromatization reaction over Mo/H-ZSM-5 catalysts

S. Haben, J. Kromwijk , I. Vollmer, B. Weckhuysen