During August DTU Chemical Engineering was the host for one of Germany’s most talented youths in the field of chemistry: Alexander Gese, just finishing school at the Carl-Friedrich-Gauss-Gymnasium in Frankfurt (Oder), came out among the six best in the 2008 German leg of the chemistry competition
"International Chemistry Olympiad".
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| Alexander Gese worked with heterogenous catalysis in the laboratories at DTU Chemical Engineering |
Thereby he earned a one month stay abroad sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and organized by the FChO, and Alexander chose the option of going to DTU Chemical Engineering where he has been working in the field of heterogeneous catalysis together with PhD student Matthias Beier and Professor Jan-Dierk Grunwaldt.
Matthias Beier worked out a research project that gave Alexander insight into the daily research life but also new skills in chemical engineering and chemistry. "It is amazing that there are students like him curious to learn more about chemistry and chemical engineering and that one can give them tasks like in a bachelor project", Jan-Dierk Grunwaldt says.
Besides work in the laboratory DTU Chemical Engineering has arranged visits to the company Haldor Topsøe and the Center for Electron Nanoscopy at DTU. The electron microscopes at both places were very impressive. Last but not least, Jan-Dierk offered him to make more out of one of the Sundays in the Copenhagen area: The question whether Alexander would like to see Louisiana or the Experimentarium was clearly answered with the science-oriented museum. Despite it did not offer so many chemical engineering related topics, the day lasted very long and was finished with one of the experimental shows.
International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) is an annual contest where high school students compete internationally. In Germany they have to qualify via four rounds for the international competition round. The first two rounds are based on homework, the 3rd on theoretical work and the 4th is a combination of theory and practical work.
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| Left to right: PhD student Matthias Beier, Professor Jan-Dierk Grunwaldt and Alexander Gese |
Most important are however the seminars where the students can meet each other and get a number of basic and high level talks. Also, Denmark is participating every year in the "International Olympiad", hosting it in the year 2000 and winning several bronze, silver and gold medals over the past years. This year it was in Hungary, next year it will be in Great Britain and in 2010 in Japan.
Further information:
http://www.ipn.uni-kiel.de/abt_chemie/icho/IChO_2004/english/pdf/icho_whatis.pdf
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| Matthias Beier with Alexander Gese in the laboratory |