Sobhan Neyrizi

What metals do you use in your research?

In my research group we mainly work with noble metals at the moment. This is because they have a good yield, sometimes up to 90 to 100%. Personally, I only use gold. One of the reasons for this is that it is a constant factor in my research, while I vary other factors.

What are your goals in your research?

Ultimately, we want to mimic natural systems for energy generation. Nature uses cheap metals such as iron instead of gold for energy storage. So eventually I like to use other metals than gold. Furthermore, enzymes are able to carry out a wide range of reactions. Besides CO₂, they can also convert O₂ and N₂ into useful products. Those are also interesting things to research.

What does your lab look like?

I work in both so-called 'wet labs' and 'dry labs'. In the wet labs, I prepare my samples for experiments. By mixing ingredients we can synthesize new molecules. We then analyze these new molecules in the dry lab, which we also call a process lab. Here we can regulate conditions such as pressure and temperature to look at their effect on the reactor performance. This analysis is also very important.