Johannes Lercher Named Distinguished Chemical Engineering Lecturer at Yale

(January 2015)

Johannes Lercher, Barnett F. Dodge Distinguished Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at Yale University

Congratulations to Dr. Johannes Lercher, Director of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Institute for Integrated Catalysis, on being selected for Yale University's Barnett F. Dodge Lecture. The lecture honors B. F. Dodge, who led Yale's Chemical Engineering Department for 30 years. Lercher spoke about the elementary class of catalyzed transformations for biofuels. He discussed how a detailed knowledge of catalysts and the reaction steps leads to new strategies.

His examples and opinions came, in part, from the work he leads for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. His group explores approaches to selectively activate and convert alkanes and methane, as well as elementary steps in the transformation of biomass compounds to alkanes.

Lercher is internationally known for his work on the fundamental aspects of industrially relevant catalysts and reactions. His research includes low-temperature acid-base catalyzed activation, functionalization, and transformation of alkanes. Lercher is a Battelle Fellow and professor at Technische Universität München, Germany.

Lercher gave his talk on November 12, 2014.