Preface to Special Issue

Excerpt

We are pleased to bring out this special issue of Emission Control Science and Technology in honor of Professor Wolfgang Grünert on the occasion of his 70th birthday and in appreciation of his outstanding contributions to catalysis for over 40 years. Wolfgang was born on August 2, 1949, in Merseburg, Germany (then GDR). He studied chemistry as the main subject with focus on Industrial Chemistry at the Technical University Leuna-Merseburg from 1968 and obtained his PhD degree from the same university in 1975 on the research topic dealing with process intensification of chlorohydrin process for olefin oxides. Being disfavored for a university career due to his inelasticity towards the political establishment in GDR, he joined a research group at the GDR Academy of Sciences (Central Institute of Organic Chemistry, Leipzig branch). The focus of his early investigation was on aromatization with chromia-based catalysts, olefin metathesis over supported Mo- and W-based catalysts, naphtha reforming, and XPS characterization of catalysts. The latter was based on a long-standing cooperation with the late E. S. Shpiro from Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry (then Soviet Academy of Sciences). After the opening of the GDR, he utilized the opportunities to work at the Fritz-Haber Institute of Max-Planck Society in Berlin (1990/1991, with Prof. R. Schlögl, XPS/UPS/LEIS with zeolites) and with Prof. R. W. Joyner at Leverhulme Center of Innovative Catalysis Liverpool (1993, environmental catalysis). He completed his habilitation degree in 1992 at TU Leuna-Merseburg on the research work dealing with structure-activity relations in supported Cr, Mo, and W catalysts. In 1994, he joined as a senior researcher at the Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry, Ruhr University Bochum, where he become full professor in 1997 and continued his entire career until his official retirement in 2016. …