Dr Shiju received his award during this year's ICNM, held 10-12 February at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, India. He gave a plenary lecture titled “Nanostructured metal oxides as Heterogeneous Catalysts: Structure-activity Relationships”.

The ICNM is organised jointly by Beijing University of Chemical Technology (China), Wuhan University (China), Mahatma Gandhi University (India) and Wroclaw University of Technology (Poland). The award committee noted the high industrial relevance of Shiju's fundamental research in heterogeneous catalysis, exemplified by the fact that several of his patents have been sold to industry and/or scaled up to pilot-plant level.

Sustainable Chemistry

Dr. Shiju’s team is part of the University of Amsterdam's Research Priority Area Sustainable Chemistry. His work focuses on catalysis engineering, and on the development of new catalysts for sustainable processes by understanding structure-activity relationships and reaction mechanisms at surfaces. 

In the past five years, Shiju has invented several new catalysts and processes, including nanostructured core-shell catalysts for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (with Total Gas & Power), clean ammoximation catalysts for caprolactam synthesis (sold to DSM) and catalysts for cleaning out cyanide ions from industrial waste streams (currently being tested at pilot-plant scale).

A strong advocate of research-based education, Shiju is the coordinator of the Green & Industrial Chemistry and the Chemistry of Functional Materials courses, that aim to give students an overview of fundamental and applied aspects of chemistry and materials science.