University of Groningen
Multifunctional catalytic systems for the conversion of glycerol to lactates Tang, Zhenchen
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Publication date: 2019
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Tang, Z. (2019). Multifunctional catalytic systems for the conversion of glycerol to lactates. University of Groningen.
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Acknowledgements
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Acknowledgements
It is a long journey to achieve this point, for almost five years in Groningen. I still clearly remember the first day I arrived in Schiphol airport and collected my residence permit in Zwolle. It was a clear day but colder than my expectation. In the past years, I experienced ups and downs, happiness and sadness, successes and failures, I cannot finally finish my PhD without the people I am going to express my gratitude here.
First of all, the sincerest thanks to my supervisor Prof. Paolo Pescarmona, you offered me so much constructive help and guidance in this research. From the initial ideas we came up with to this final thesis, I gained a lot of scientific knowledge and experience through this four-year study. It is really appreciated of the time you spend on correcting my papers and the way you taught me how to think and write in a logic and critical way. Nevertheless, I really enjoy the free time after the 5pm since we both work to a bit late. At this time, we discuss various things more than scientific issues and without the time pressure from the calendar. I wish you have a very good life, and I do believe we can and should meet again somewhere in the future.
I am also very grateful to Prof. Erik Heeres. Actually, you are the person who offered me such a chance of doing my PhD in the University of Groningen at 2014. We had quite some discussion, the encouragement and advice you gave me are certainly very constructive. You are a very nice person in life and also a rigorous person in the scientific point of view. You gave me numerous comments and questions on my manuscripts that surely improved the quality of my research. Thanks for all your supports in the past years.
I would like to thank the members of assessment committee: Prof. Francesco Picchioni, Prof. Katalin Barta and Prof. Dmitry Murzin, for your valuable time to access my thesis and provide me valuable comments and suggestions.
Then, I would like to give my gratitude for the colleagues for their kind support. Prof. Wesley Brown, thanks for your kind help for UV-Vis spectra analysis. Prof. Petra Rudolf, Miheala Enache and Ali Syariati, thank you for analysing XPS for my several samples. Marc Stuart, thanks very much for your help in TEM analysis, I learned a lot from your training course. Many thanks to Erwin Wilbers, Marcel de Vries and Anne Appeldoorn for your technical support for my reactors and also some personal small mechanical help, to Leon Rohrbach, Jan Henk Marsman for analytic support, to Hans van der Velde for the elemental analysis and to Marya de Jong, Kim
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Winters, Geraldine Gambier for your administrative support. Thanks for the people above for organizing the lab outing activities, which are absolutely enjoyable and a lot of fun.
I also want to thank all my lab mates. Dina Boer, Thanks for your help in translating the summary of this thesis into Dutch and our cooperation in the research. Arjen Kamphuis, Zahra Asgar Pour, Yasser Alassmy, Bhawan Singh, Ionela Gavrila, Arne Hommes, Matteo Miola, Nihat Sahin, Yehan Tao and Jing Chen, Thanks for all the supports and laughing time in the lab 224 and in the office 211. Henk van de Bovenkamp, Tim Meinds, Yuehu Wang, Zheng Zhang, Arjan Kloekhorst, Louis Daniel, Jenny Soetedjo, Anna Piskun, Angela Kumalaputri, Idoia Hita, though you guys already left this group, I still remember and thank the time you were here and the help you gave me. Thanks also to Wang Yin, Yifei Fan, Xiaoying Xi, He Li, Feng Yu, Wenze Guo, Daili Peng, Qingqing Yuan, Shun Fang, Songbo He, Yanfei Li, Zhiwen Wang, Zhenlei Zhang, Huaizhou Yang, Xiang Tang, Yanyan Liu Hanwen Gu, Cui Ouyang, Jue Wang, Zhipeng Tian, Jing Li, Xiang Li, Jie Zong, Ria Abdilla, Frita Yuliati, Susanti, Monique Bernardes, Nicola Migliore, Jessi Velasco, Homer Genuino, Dian Santosa, Khaled Sebakhy, Pablo Druetta, Frank van Maastricht, Jesus Rodriguez Comas, Ceacilia Satyawan, Ranjita Bose, Patrizo Raffa, Peter Deuss, Jun Yue and many other people I do not mention here for your support in the past years.
I am also very grateful to my Chinese friends here in Groningen as well as in the Netherlands, I cannot image the life without you guys around me. It is absolutely the one period of the most valuable memory in my life. First of all, thanks to the friends who live in the Planetenlaan building: Huatang Cao, Shuai Feng, Xiaoming Miao, Cong Duan, Yanan Wang, Hongyan Li, Jing Wu, Peng Wang, Jing Sun, Jiaying Hang, Bing Jiang, Binqi Tang, Shili Chen, Juan Chen, Yuanyuan Ju, Ji Zhang. We had many activities together and we gather like a family. Thanks to the friends we have played football together in Groningen: Qingkai Yang, Tao Yuan, Tao Zhang, Lifei Zheng, Kai Liu, Boqun Liu, Haojie Cao, Bin Liu, Ling Liu, Gang Huang, Chao Ma, Zhuohua Sun, Jun Li, Jiquan Wu, Guowei Li, Cong Feng, Yanxi Zhang, Yuzhen Qin, Qihong Chen, Jiawen Chen, Yun Si, Shuo Yang, Chao Guo and many other friends we played together in almost every Sunday afternoon. It is great pleasure. There are also many thanks to the friends during my stay in Groningen and the Netherlands, Jin Xu, Liqiang Lu, Yuanyuan Wang, Jielin Zhang, Baojie Zhang, Xiaodong Chen, Xin Zhao, Ji Zhang, Suriguga, Naqin, Haigeng Fu, Kai Gao, Su Liu, Xu Hu, Tian Liu, Wenxuan Zhang, Yuan Gao, Bing Sun, Yiwen Tang and those I do not mention their names here. I would like to have a special paragraph to my beloved wife, Shilin Chen. You are the most important one in my life! I cannot reach this point without your unconditional love, care and
Acknowledgements
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support in the past years. Life sometimes can be tough as a PhD, it is you that comfort me with your understanding and encouragement. Thank you so much for all of these things. It’s going to be a life-long journey, we are together.
Last, but not the least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family in Chinese. 最后，我要感谢我的父母对我一直以来无条件的支持和关爱。从小开始，你们就尽可能给我 提供良好的学习条件，我能够取得博士学位，和你们的支持和鼓励是分不开的。我也为我们 家幸福快乐的氛围感到骄傲。祝你们身体健康！特别感谢我的爷爷，奶奶，你们从小对我的 培养和金山庄的童年生活，是我无比珍惜的回忆。还要感谢我的外婆，叔叔阿姨们，弟弟妹 妹们对我学业、生活的关心和支持，太多的事情在此无法一一记述，祝你们一切顺利。我为 我们这个大家庭感到自豪。 Zhenchen Tang May 2019, Groningen
