Research

Ketoses are monosaccharides with a keto-functionality. Nowadays, they are produced from aldoses (monosaccharides with an aldehyde functionality) In a biocatalytic procedure. Applications of Ketoses include the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry as well as the production of green platform chemicals.

As the biocatalytic manufacturing of ketoses is very expensive and requires a very pure feedstock, chemocatalysts present a possible alternative, which is both cheaper and more stable.

To facilitate the intelligent design of a suitable chemocatalysts our work focusses on mechanistic investigations on the base catalyzed isomerization of aldoses to ketoses.

Research focus:

• Kinetic experiments on the isomerization of aldoses to ketoses accompanied by kinetic modelling
• Identification of the decomposition products
• Investigation of the influence of different salts on the reaction
• Synthesis of partially deuterated sugars as substrate in for mechanistic investigations in operando NMR measurements

If you are interested in a research internship, just send me an e-mail or visit me in my office.