ICIQ

Piet van Leeuwen was appointed as a Group Leader in the ICIQ in April 2004. He is Emeritus Professor of Homogeneous Catalysis at the University of Amsterdam and Emeritus Professor of Industrial Homogeneous Catalysis at the Technical University of Eindhoven.

He has chaired and directed many activities in the field of catalysis in the Netherlands. He worked with Shell in Amsterdam for twenty six years in a wide variety of topics of homogeneous catalysis. During many years he was in charge of Shell’s fundamental efforts related to organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis. Since 1989, part-time, and since 1994 full time, he initiated and led the homogeneous catalysis group at the University of Amsterdam.

His interest ranges from fundamental aspects to applied catalysis utilizing mainly late transition metals. New concepts to which he contributed include host-guest catalysis, dendrimer catalysis, effects of wide bite-angles, and in-situ spectroscopy. Main research areas are ligand effects in hydroformylation, carbonylation reactions, carbon-carbon bond formation reactions, microflow reactor systems for homogeneous catalysis, and e-learning.

He has (co)authored about 350 publications, 30 patents, he has contributed to several books, and is author of the book Homogeneous Catalysis; understanding the art. He has (co)supervised more than 40 PhD theses.

In 2005 he was honored with the Holleman Prize by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 2006 to 2009 he held a Marie Curie Chair of Excellence in the ICIQ. In 2009 he received a doctorate honoris causa from the University Rovira I Virgili. He was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant for his project  "A New Vision on Nanocatalysts, NanosOnWings” in 2009.