On the 18th of September Alexander defended his doctoral thesis dealing with the study of modified vanadia catalysts employed to remove NOx from exhaust gas streams. His work was done in the group of Prof. Per-Anders Carlsson and I was acting as co-supervisor together with Prof. Anna Martinelli.

Alexander made use of many analysis techniques studying VOx/TiO2 catalyst materials that had been modified with Sb, Ce, or Nb. A main focus of his work is the study of changes to the surface and structure of the material after a thermal aging procedure. Among others, he used vibrational spectroscopy techniques like DRIFTS and (in-situ) Raman to obatain detailed information on the catalyst's structure and interaction with NH3, NO, and H2O.
The project was funded by the Swedish Energy Agency through the FFI program “Ultra-efficient recyclable De-NOx catalysts for biofuel and hybrid powertrains” (No. 51318-1) and the Competence Centre for Catalysis, which is hosted by Chalmers University of Technology.

Alexander was also the first phd student I officially acted as co-supervisor for at Chalmers and I have to admit one feels a bit proud after the great presentation Alex did during his defense.

Alex, thank you for the years and all the best for your future!

From left to right: Dr. Davide Ferri (PSI Switzerland, faculty opponent), myself, Dr. Alexander Nellessen,
Prof. Satu Ojala (Univ. Oulu, grading committee), Prof. Per-Anders Carlsson (project leader, main supervisor),
Prof. Jonas Sjöblom (Chalmers, grading committee),
Prof. Magnus Skoglundh (Chalmers, Examiner), Prof. Anna Martinelli (co-supervisor). Not in picture are two more members of the grading committee: Prof. Christian Hulteberg (Lund Univ.) and Prof. Henrik Leion (Chalmers)
photo by Lotta Pettersson