University of Groningen
Sustainable pathways to chemicals and fuels from lignocellulose via catalytic cleavage and coupling reactions
Sun, Zhuohua
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Publication date: 2018
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Sun, Z. (2018). Sustainable pathways to chemicals and fuels from lignocellulose via catalytic cleavage and coupling reactions. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
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Acknowledgement
At the end of this thesis, I would like to thank all the people who helped me to finish my PhD and make the life enjoyable and memorable in Groningen. This four years life in Groningen is one of the most precious periods in my life; I experienced different cultures, met a lot of friends and learned so much knowledge that could lay a good foundation for my future development.
First, I would like to thank you, yes, for your reading of my thesis. Without your reading, this thesis means nothing. I hope my research will give you some new ideas and it would be great if you can share this with others.
Then, my gratitude goes to my supervisors. Katalin, thanks for accepting me as a member in your group. You are a good supervisor and give me a lot of freedom in my research. I feel really enjoyable working with you and I learned really a lot in this group. You can always give me a quick feedback for my doubts and without your advice and support I will never have so many good results. Writing the Chemical Reviews paper is the most challenging task for me in these four years. But when I realize you are working until midnight in order to finish the final version before deadline, I feel there is no excuse for me not to work hard.
Ben, this is a great honour that I can be your student. Although we didn’t talk much in these four years, I was still impressed with your enthusiasm in chemistry. Every sentence you told gave me a lot of inspiration and I hope I could follow your words and make a little contribution to the field of chemistry.
I would express my acknowledgement to the members of the assessment committee, Prof. H. J. Heeres, Prof. M. Abu-Omar and Prof. F. Wang for reading and approving this thesis.
Also I would to thank my former colleagues. Giovanni, thanks for your supervising at the beginning of my PhD. You are a really kind person and also a hard-working man. You deserve a special thanks as half work of this thesis was finished with your help. Peter, thanks for your help to adapt the life in the Netherlands. You are my first Dutch friend and I was really supervised that you know so much about Chinese. I know my poor English is hard to be understood at the beginning, but you can always understand me. The Sichuan restaurant you suggested is still the best Chinese restaurant in the Netherlands for me. Tao, you are a really smart guy and I want to thank you for your help in the lab. And I also want to thank you for organizing the trip to Iceland. This is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Anand, you are a quiet man but I know there is so much in your mind. Thanks for showing me the detail pressures of isolation of lignin and I hope you have a good life with your wife. Feng, although you are here only for one year, I still remember the wonderful time with you, like we watched the football match of Groningen together in the cold night of December and a long time chat before you leave with a lot of beer. Ciaran, thanks for visiting our group and gave us a lot of fun. Jurgen, you are really a traditional Dutch guy but I still cannot
Acknowledgement
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understand how you can eat sandwich every day for more than 20 years. Bert, it is really good you can find a job as high school teacher after your master and I hope you can always enjoy your job there. And other people visiting our group, Christopher, Martin, Laurie and Marilena, you are all wonderful colleagues and I am really happy to enjoy the time with you. Bálint and Anastasiia, thanks for being my paranymphs. Bálint, you are really a hard-working man, thanks for your contribution especially for the writing of Chemical Reviews. Without your work, it cannot be accepted so fast. You are also a widely-read man and you can always come up with very special ideas. I think you will definitely get a good job (maybe open your own company) and earn a lot of money. Anastasiia, you look thin and weak when I first saw you but now I know you are a strong independent Russian girl. Thanks for helping me to finish the project in Chapter 3 and your patient explanation for trip to Russia. I am also happy that you want to learn Chinese and maybe you can try to find a job (or even husband) in China in the future - “中国欢迎你”.
Of course I’d like to thank all my current colleagues. Alessandra and Saravana, thanks for helping me to finish the manuscript of Chemical Reviews. Yongzhuang, thanks for taking care of our Guinea-pigs. Mattia, as you just joined our group, hope you will enjoy the research and life here in the coming years. Hugo and Rachel, I know you are both talent people and wish you get good results for the master projects.
For the bachelor students I supervised - Anaís, Daniel, Henk-Jan and Gwen, you all did good jobs. The process supervising you is also a process improving myself and thanks for being my students.
Without the support of a good team of technicians, no projects will go smoothly. So thanks Pieter, Theodora, Monique, Wim, Hans, Oetze, Erwin, Anne, Léon, Marzia and Bert. And thanks also to all the secretaries of our department for their support: Hilda, Alphons, Cristina, Tineke and Annette. And all the professors and colleagues in our institute, thanks for you kind suggestions in my Werkbespreking and help in my research.
我还要感谢四年来陪伴我度过格村美好生活的来自五湖四海的中国朋友们。包括跟我 同时来到格罗宁根的：苗小明，闫星辰，叶刚，陈娟，曹华堂，唐震辰，孙静，邓晶 晶，王元泽，周祺惠，成晓东等。以及帮助过我的师兄师姐们：赵德鹏，陈家文，董 佳嘉，杨朔，张涛，邢丽娟，李国伟，荣佳伟，张铮，殷旺等。还有各位师弟师妹们： 韦雨辰，郭亚飞，葛洛，刘彬，郭贝贝，席笑迎，陈少雨，徐樊。特别是每周末风雨 无阻，跟我一起战斗过的足球队的同志们：曹豪杰，刘凌，李军，张琰曦，杨庆凯， 秦雨真，刘博群，老姜，司韵，陈祁宏，超哥，凯哥，飞哥，老杨，赵兴洪，田小波 以及更多的我可能都叫不出名字的队友们。感谢你们让我在格村也感受到了家一样的 温暖，有了你们我这四年的生活才会这么丰富多彩。
Acknowledgement 165 还有外出开会期间遇到的好友们：李思哲，陈健明，安楠，程冠桦，韩善磊，黄晓明， 李莉娜，刘乐，孙滨，杨柳林，张耀远…… 与你们的交谈使枯燥的会议变得有趣，更增 加了我对不同国家和高校的认识，希望不远的将来还能有机会相聚。 当然，最需要感谢的还是多年来一直含辛茹苦，培养我长大的爸爸和妈妈。没有你们 的付出也就没有我现在的成长，没有你们的谆谆教诲也就没有我现在的成就。希望我 没用辜负你们的期望，在不远的将来我将用实际行动报答你们的养育之恩。 最后一段我希望留给我生命中最重要的人—我的妻子成金玲。我们从大学开始相识相 爱，到研究生时一起奋斗出国，一直到现在共同在荷兰努力拼搏，为生活，为科研也 为了我们的将来。这十年多的时间我们从最初的迷茫与彷徨到现在的自信与坚定，一 步步走来我们都在成长。尤其是这四年间，我们远离亲人独在异乡，各种生活上的挫 折使我们更加成熟。你精湛的厨艺也让我一次次尝到了家乡的味道。当然我科研上的 成就也少不了你的帮助，尤其是你帮我提纯的那几个化合物，对我文章的接收起到了 至关重要的作用^_^。四年间我们一同走过了 14 个国家 30 多个城市，接下来的时间我 还想跟你一同走下去，走遍世界的每一个角落。最后，千言万语我只想说一句话—有 你真好！ 13/05/2018
