Course catalogue
Create your own master’s programme by choosing between the different specializations of our partner universities.
Academic Programme
Implemented from September 2025
Chemistry and Technology of Catalysis and Laboratory (6 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
- Experimental methods on innovative research infrastructures - 5 ECTS
- Digital Micro-certification "The challenges of sustainable chemistry" - 10h
- Transferable skills : French language & interculturality (3 ECTS)
- Quantum mechanics towars quantum computing (5 ECTS)
- Winter school in Data Science (2 ECTS)
- Organic / Inorganic chemistry towards sustainability (5 ECTS)
- Kinetics and Electrochemistry (5 ECTS)
- Introduction to biophysics and microscopies for life science (5 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
- Luminescence spectroscopy of Lanthanides (3 ECTS)
- Summer School in Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Polish course (3 ECTS)
- The molecules of life: from structure to chemical function (5 ECTS)
- Thermodynamics and soft matter (3 ECTS)
- Introduction to solid state (5 ECTS)
- Tech-infused perspectives on photochemical reaction dynamics (6 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Portuguese course (3 ECTS)
- Summer School in Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
- Solid State Physics (5 ECTS)
- Molecular Energetics (3 ECTS)
- Laboratory of Materials and Surface Analysis (5 ECTS)
- Interfacial Electrochemistry (3 ECTS)
- Interfaces, Colloids and Self-Assembly (6 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
- 1-year research project - master thesis (equivalent 45 ECTS)
- Progress assessment of the research project (equivalent 6 ECTS)
- Weekly seminars (equivalent 4 ECTS)
- Special Topics in Chemistry (equivalent 5 ECTS)
- French language courses (3 ECTS)
- Nanosciences (6 ECTS)
- Medical applications of nanomaterials and radiations (6 ECTS)
- Top management, corporate law, and project writing for technology transfer and decision making (4 ECTS)
- Tracking ultrafast radiation-induced reactivity (3 ECTS)
- Applications for renewable energy and storage: solar fuels, batteries and hydrogen (6 ECTS) (6 ECTS)
- Scientific Writing and career objectives (2 ECTS)
- Surface Science and Nanostructuring at Surfaces (6 ECTS)
- Polymers for electronics and energy harvesting (5 ECTS)
- Electrochemical systems for fuel and electrolysis cells and batteries (6 ECTS)
- Project-based laboratory on device building (3 ECTS)
- Italian Courses (3 ECTS)
- Chemistry and Technology of Catalysis (5 ECTS)
Content
The course will provide students with the basics of preparation, characterization and application of heterogeneous catalysts to industrial and eco-sustainable processes. Innovative team and problem based learning approaches will be used for both classroom and laboratory sessions. The students will be organized in teams that will deal with the development of real catalysts using a problem based learning approach. The course will be structured by defining some main learning milestones, and general assessments will be periodically carried out by using an interactive presentation tool with a real-time feedback (e.g. Mentimeter).
Theoretical part: frontal classes
- Introduction to heterogeneous catalysis
Fundamentals of catalysis. Catalytic site and fundamentals on reaction mechanism. Survey of industrial heterogeneous catalysts. Activity (TON, TOF), selectivity and stability. Examples of catalysis applied to the development of eco-sustainable and green processes or to pollution control. Catalyst requirements.
- Catalysts preparation
Support and properties. Synthesis of supports and bulk catalysts. Precipitation, sol-gel, hydrothermal synthesis, stabilization, shaping. Zeolite synthesis. Raney Catalysts. Preparation of supported catalysts, methods of deposition and support selection: impregnation with and without interaction (incipient wetness, homogeneous precipitation, ion exchange, adsorption). Scale-up of catalysts preparation.
- Catalyst characterization
Morphology and physical characteristics, bulk and surface characterizations, technological properties. Low temperature vapor adsorption and physisorption, porometry and fluid permeation, microscopy, spectroscopic techniques, programmed temperature techniques. Assessment of metal dispersion (e.g. TEM and chemisorption).
- Industrial and laboratory reactors.
Experimental procedures to assess the catalytic activity and laboratory reactors. Reaction regimes and mass transport regimes in heterogeneous catalysis: criteria and experimental methods. Experimental planning of kinetic measurements.
Laboratory trainings
- Preparation of supported and bulk catalysts by dry and wet methods. Porosity and catalyst loading determination.
- Catalyst characterization by electron microscopy (SEM, TEM), physisorption, permeability and infrared spectroscopy.
- Testing of a catalyst in a gas-solid catalytic reaction or a gas-liquid-solid catalytic reaction.
Aims
The general aim of the course is to achieve an understanding of the basic catalysis and applied aspects of heterogeneous catalysis. At the end of the course students should be able to prepare and characterize, and plan how to test the catalyst. The innovative learning approach aims to improve the capacity of experimental observation, creativity, the ability to solve problems in a team working environment, to organize the experimental work in a report.
Pre-requiste
General Chemistry, Physical Chemistry (equilibrium thermodynamics), Fundamentals of kinetics
Recommended Books
- “Engineering Catalysis”, D. Yu. Murzin, Berlin / Boston, De Gruyter, 2013
- “The Catalytic Process from Laboratory to the Industrial Plant”, D. Sanfilippo (ed.), Milano, Maraschi, 1994. This book is available to students in the form of an article for each chapter through ScienceDirect.
- “Principles and Practice of Heterogeneous Catalysis”, J.M.Thomas, W.J. Thomas, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, 1996
Teaching Staff
Prof. Antonio Comite (Course Coordinator)
Hours
Lectures: 32 h
Lab works: 26 h
Grading System
Final oral exam: 60%
Laboratory reports: 40%