We are delighted to announce that Hannah Stieber has been honored with the prestigious award for the Best Master2023 in the Faculty of Bio- and Chemical Engineering at TU Dortmund. The prize was presented by Guido Baranowski, Chairman of the Society of Friends of the Technical University of Dortmund e.V. and Prof. Dr. Wiebke Möhring, Vice Rector of Studies at TU Dortmund University, at this year's Academic Year Celebration.Her exceptional work stood out among all master students, earning her not only recognition but also a well-deserved prize of €500.

She received the award for her master's thesis "Investigation of the deactivation of molecular Pd catalysts using operando spectroscopic methods".

In addition to the reconstruction of a mini plant and the selection of a suitable plant configuration, the main aim of the master's thesis was to carry out the industrially relevant palladium-catalyzed methoxycarbonylation of ethene as an example reaction for the detection of catalyst deactivation using operando spectroscopic investigations.

The work was supervised PD Dr. Andreas Vorholt from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Hannah Stieber is now part of the Vorholt group and started her PhD thesis in the framework of the EU funded project e-Tandem. Here she is responsible for designing, builing and operation of a mini plant for a new synthesis route for e-fuels.

Congratulations to Hannah Stieber.