Kleij, Arjan W

Biography

Arjan W. Kleij (1971) received his MSc (with honors) and PhD (Cum Laude) from the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands) working with Gerard van Koten. In 2002 he moved to Spain for a postdoctoral stay as a NWO TALENT fellow with Javier de Mendoza, and then he held another postdoc appointment at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands) working with Joost Reek. He also held various scientific positions in the industry working as a project leader (Avantium Technologies) and senior research scientist (Hexion Specialty Chemicals). In 2006, he returned to Spain as ICREA Researcher and ICIQ Group Leader, and was promoted to ICREA Research Professor in 2011. He is member of the advisory board of Current Organic Chemistry (2014-) and ChemSusChem (2016-). Guest editor for Catal. Sci. & Technol. (2014) and ChemSusChem (2016), chairman of the Carbon Dioxide Conversion Catalysis conference in Albufeira (Portugal) in 2016. Total citations >5400 and current h-index of 42.

Research Interest

The research of his group focuses on the valorization of small molecules such as CO2 and SO2. We design new and more sustainable catalytic methods for their conversion and use in organic synthesis; a major focus is on the use of renewable materials to produce organic matter of interest in academic and industrial settings. Typical examples of organic compounds that can be derived from CO2 include biodegradable polymers, synthons for the pharmaceutical industry and organic intermediates of importance in stereo-selective synthesis. As a key enabling technology, we use homogeneous catalysis approaches based on metal complexes and/or organocatalysts, and investigate important process features such as catalyst recycling, energy/material efficiencies and overall selectivity/reactivity profiles.