Thijs de Groot

Thijs de Groot has a broad chemical engineering knowledge, especially in process design, physical properties and separation science. In his industrial career he has led projects on the production of sustainable methanol (from carbon dioxide and hydrogen), the production of organic carbonates and the capture of carbon dioxide. These projects were typically carried out in combination with knowledge institutes and/or universities and resulted in six patent applications. In a more recent project of AkzoNobel and TU/e he has investigated spinning disk technology to radically reduce equipment size in the chlor-alkali business of AkzoNobel. This resulted in two patent applications and a number of publications. In his academic research Thijs focuses on the intensification of electrochemical processes to enable operation at higher current densities and pressures. Achieving this would enable more cost effective electrochemical processes. The intensification requires a combination of different disciplines, including electrocatalysis, membrane science, chemical reactor engineering and computational fluid dynamics. Current work is focused on the evaluation of different cell designs, membranes, and high temperature and pressure operation for both chlor-alkali electrolysis and alkaline water electrolysis.