New routes of synthesis are increasingly important in view of scarce resources. In fact they are indispensable in order to achieve the German "Chemiewende" (transition of the chemical industry). Our experts in catalysis develop cost-efficient routes of synthesis for noble metal catalysts providing high selectivity and yields.

As recently published in Science by Gunnoe et al., styrene was synthesized in just one step from benzene and ethylene at low temperatures. Since no intermediary steps were necessary like in traditional procedures, this reaction is economically very attractive. The development of re-using process for this catalyst would go even further and far outweigh the potential benefits by making it also sustainalbe.