On Physical Chemistry : Education, Research and Government Funding

On physical chemistry : education, research and government funding Citation for published version (APA): Tuinier, R. (2016). On physical chemistry : education, research and government funding. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. Document status and date: Published: 03/06/2016 Document Version: Publisher’s PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement: www.tue.nl/taverne Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at: [email protected] providing details and we will investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 InBVHVSBUJPO prof.dr.ir. Remco Tuinier 3 +unF 2016 / %FQBSUNFOUPG$IFNJDBM&OHJOFFSJOHBOE$IFNJTUSZ 0O1IZTJDBM$IFNJTUSZ &EVDBUJPO 3FTFBSDIBOE (PWFSONFOU'VOEJOH Where innovation starts On Physical Chemistry: Education, Research and Government Funding Inaugural lecture of Professor Remco Tuinier Presented on June 3, 2016 at Eindhoven University of Technology Remco Tuinier, Laboratory of Physical Chemistry Special thanks to: Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Jan Zandstra (Zandstra cartoons), for his Groene Loper 5, 5612 AE Eindhoven inspiring cartoons dr. Chris G.J. Bisperink, dr. Catarina Esteves HELIX, building 14, STO 2.49 and dr. Mark Vis for critically reading earlier Postal address: P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven versions of this lecture [email protected] Emma C. Giakoumatos for suggesting web‐sites: improvements on the English text Pleunie Smits for her support www.chem.tue.nl/spc ICMS animation studio for making the www.uu.nl/medewerkers/RTuinier animation and DES illustration shown during http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/remco‐tuinier/9/45b/94 the lecture 1 1. Introduction “Slowly the earth is dying.” With this sentence Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands started her Christmas message in the late 1980s. It was the time when I started my university studies in Wageningen. Suddenly, I entered a community where people spoke with a loud voice on environmental issues. In Wageningen I began to realise that fossil fuels, evolved over millions of years, are consumed rapidly by us. And that as a result we provide future generations with an energy problem. The Queen’s statement on the dying earth was, certainly in the 80s, risky; prophets of doom were not popular at that time. Is the statement that the earth is dying correct? The earth’s health can be connected to the concentration of CO2 in air, which is increasing. The concentration of CO2 in the earth’s air was around 0.3(wt)% for thousands of 1 years. Following the industrial revolution the CO2 concentration started to increase slowly , increasing rapidly over the last few decades towards 0.4(wt)%. This is definitely worrying. The most significant issue is that this leads to global warming. From the 1990s the molecule CO2 has increasingly received negative publicity. For example, on the 8 o’clock news journalists spoke of “the poisonous CO2”. This terminology is misleading; the oxygen molecules that we all breathe are being converted into CO2 and other compounds. Hence our bodies are full of CO2. On the issue of poisonous CO2 Mr. Kees van Kooten and Mr. Wim de Bie comforted us through their satirical television program “Keek op de Week”: the CO2 could easily escape through the hole in the ozone layer, therefore there is no problem. What is actually the cause of the higher CO2 concentration? The First Law of Thermodynamics says that energy is conserved. However, every time energy is transformed to another form there is less energy available to perform work. During energy conversions involving the use of fossil fuels, CO2 is produced and potential chemical energy is transformed into heat and kinetic energy. In summary: the CO2 concentration is actually an energy degradation meter. And to answer the question I raised earlier on: Yes, the earth is dying because the energy degradation meter is increasing. 1 D. Lüthi, M. Le Floch, B. Bereiter, T. Blunier, J.‐M. Barnola, U. Siegenthaler, D. Raynaud, J. Jouzel, H. Fischer, K. Kawamura, T. F. Stocker, High‐resolution carbon dioxide concentration record 650,000– 800,000 years before present, Nature 453 (2008) 379‐382. 2 In relation to environmental issues Chemistry had a bad name for a long time. With respect to the increase in CO2 resulting from burning fossil fuels, the responsibilities of the large chemical companies receives quite some attention. I do think however, together with many of my colleagues, that chemistry as a discipline can provide many more sustainable solutions for the way we deal with energy and the use of materials. When humanity decides to radically change the way certain compounds are being used, nature demonstrates its buffering capacity. For example, the hole in the ozone layer is recovering because CFCs2, which were widely used as refrigerants, propellants (in aerosol applications), and solvents, have been replaced by more environmentally friendly compounds. It seems equilibria can be shifted. Later in this lecture I will show you some examples of our research that aim at contributing to a more sustainable world. In this inaugural lecture I am going to explain to you what the discipline physical chemistry is, the plans I have with respect to education and research, what my view is on the role of the government in the Dutch research and educational landscape. But before we jump into physical chemistry I would like to share some thoughts on science, and in particular, beta sciences. 2. Science From when human beings first walked on the earth the primary concern has always been survival. Progress in survival techniques such as the innovations in agriculture, allowed for more time for reflection and thinking. Initially, all that people did not understand, which was a lot, was considered as magic or supernatural. By magic I refer to something that is not understood. This led to people asking questions like: who takes care of the weather? Is the earth flat? Why is the sky blue? What causes lightning? Humans gradually discovered that there was a logical explanation for many phenomena. People started to propose laws that described and / or quantified nature. It appeared that the blue sky is not a miracle but the result of molecules in air that scatter light. Physics taught us blue light waves have a higher scattered intensity than, for instance, red and green light and that is why blue light dominates the colour of the sky. Unless there are clouds. And who controls the weather? That remains the mystery of weather stations. It is hard to define what research is. For me it is an attempt to improve our understanding. In order to clarify some misconceptions in society it is useful to indicate what kind of activities cannot be qualified as research. The iPad generation thinks that internet “knows everything”, suggesting performing research is the same as “looking up”. Another mismatch with societal perceptions is that a researcher is curious. This often is not the case. A researcher is often very 2 CFCs = chlorofluorocarbons 3 interested especially in his or her own field of specialisation. The result of an investigation is not an opinion. Somebody may have the opinion that energy arises spontaneously out of nothing. My friendly response would be: it sounds nice but it is incorrect. It conflicts with the First law of thermodynamics, which is solid as a rock. Why do researchers investigate a particular topic? A researcher is usually driven by a certain problem that needs to be solved. Every solid investigation starts with a question. Often the question in the end turns out to be the wrong question. What drives research? Typically, a researcher makes an observation and says: why does it work like that? Why is the sky black at night? Why is a solution turbid? What makes a dispersion of gold particles red? Subsequently, a first hypothesis is developed based on logical argumentation to explain the observed phenomenon. Good research yields an insight that teaches us something new. This sounds straightforward and appealing, but is complicated in practice. How does one usually attempt to solve a problem? A first trial often fails, see Fig. 1. Then one improves the method to find a solution until a solid method has been developed. Usually the path towards a breakthrough is not simple and most attempts to achieve progress actually fail. Figure 1.

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