Prof. Atsushi Urakawa

Urakawa group develops novel heterogeneous catalysts and catalytic processes with the aim to minimize the energy usage and negative impacts of such processes on natural environment and human health. The group employs a multi-disciplinary approach based on material science, reaction engineering and in situ/operando methodologies to gain solid comprehension of the active sites and the transformation pathways. The main target reactions are the conversion of CO₂ to valuable chemicals, methane activation, environmental catalysis (NOx abatement) and the production of hydrogen, the important molecule for CO₂ reduction, including electro- and photocatalytic activation. Also, powerful in situ/operando methodologies to study solid materials and gas-solid and solid-liquid interfaces are being developed and applied to shed light on catalytic reaction mechanisms, especially on the reactor scale.

Academic background

Atsushi Urakawa obtained his BSc degree in Applied Chemistry at Kyushu University (Japan) with one year stay in the USA. He then moved to Europe and studied Chemical Engineering at TU Delft for his MSc degree and obtained his PhD in 2006 at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). He worked as Senior Scientist and Lecturer at ETH Zurich and in 2010 he joined ICIQ (Spain) as Group Leader. In 2019, he undertook a new challenge as Professor of Catalysis Engineering at ChemE, TU Delft. He is elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2016) and the recipient of JSPS Prize (2020) and The Japan Academy Medal (2021).