Heterogeneous Catalysis and Chemical Reaction Engineering are inextricably linked. About 90% of all chemical intermediates and consumer products (fuels, plastics, fertilizers etc.) are produced with the aid of catalysts. Most of them, in particular large scale products, are produced by heterogeneous catalysis viz. gaseous or liquid reactants react on solid catalysts. In multiphase reactors gases, liquids and a solid catalyst are present.

Heterogeneous catalysis plays also a key role in any future energy scenario (fuel cells, electrocatalytic splitting of water) and in environmental engineering (automotive catalysis, photocatalyic abatement of water pollutants).

Heterogeneous catalysis is an interdisciplinary science requiring knowledge of different scientific disciplines such as

• Materials Science (synthesis and characterization of solid catalysts)
• Physics (structure and electronic properties of solids, defects)
• Physical Chemistry (thermodynamics, reaction mechanisms, chemical kinetics, adsorption, desorption, spectroscopy, surface chemistry, theory)
• Reaction Engineering (catalytic reactors, mass- and heat transport in catalytic reactors, multi-scale modeling, application of heterogeneous catalysis)