Cluster of Excellence UniCat

The Cluster of Excellence Unifying Concepts in Catalysis (UniCat) [2]was established in November 2007. UniCat is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) using funds of the Excellence Initiative [3] of the German Federal and State Governments. UniCat’s chairman is Prof. Dr. Matthias Driess [4] from Technische Universität Berlin.

The participants in UniCat comprise more than fifty natural and engineering science teams from the TU Berlin, FU Berlin, HU Berlin, Universität Potsdam, the Fritz-Haber-Institut of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, and the Max Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung in Potsdam.

UniCat combines research on heterogeneous, homogeneous and biological catalysis. Thus, catalysts are developed and explored in traditional chemistry and physics, in the biological sciences and in the materials sciences. Engineers in various disciplines then make use of their findings in industrial applications.

Consequently, this Cluster of Excellence combines unique expertise in the natural sciences with modern methods of engineering. From their collaboration we can expect to generate considerable synergies that will push forward the development of new catalytic processes.