ARC Federation Fellows

Professor Thomas Maschmeyer

The world is standing at the threshold of a revolution that is driven by the need for truly sustainable processes, both in the production of chemicals as well as in the generation of power.

At current rates of resource use, a world population operating with Australian standards of living would require four to six planets. Clearly, this is untenable and from a chemical viewpoint the inherent challenges can only be met through strategies for increased use of renewable resources, waste production, energy optimisation and process intensification.

For Federation Fellow and former bicentennial fellow Thomas Maschmeyer in the School of Chemistry, the aim is to tackle these issues by generating and using new fundamental insights on the molecular and nanoscopic level to develop leads for the design of new catalytic chemical routes and processes to enhance sustainability.

Professor Maschemeyer focuses on the use of renewables, such as the conversion of biomass to fuels (biodiesel and lignocellulosic ethanol) or the photocatalytic splitting of water to generate hydrogen. Furthermore, ionic liquids and super-critical solvents such as carbon dioxide, alcohols or water, which can act both as solvent and catalyst, form the backbone of his activities in process innovation.