1. Alberto Villa, Sebastiano Campisi, Khaled M. H. Mohammed

Curriculum Vitae of Prof. Laura Prati
Laura Prati is presently an Associate Professor in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Milan, Department
of Chemistry. She graduated in Chemistry (1983) at University of Milan, and received her specialisation in
“Tecniche Analitiche per la Chimica Organica Fine” from the Politecnico of Milano in 1985 and was awarded
a PhD in Industrial Chemistry in 1988. Since the beginning of her scientific formation she was involved in the
field of the heterogeneous materials particularly applied to catalysis, being awarded by a MONTEDIPE S.r.l.
fellowship, concerning with the project “Substitutive catalysts of noble metals”. In 1989 she became
Researcher and in 1999 Associate Professor of General Chemistry. She is applying from several years to low
impact environmental catalytic methodologies as alternative processes of the stoichiometric ones based on
organic synthesis. She introduced the use of gold as active metal in the aerobic selective oxidation of
organic compounds, contributing to the developing of the unusual gold catalytic properties, the main one
being the resistance in the liquid phase to the poisoning due to the overoxidation. Her skills include the
preparation and the functionalization of materials for obtaining high metallic dispersed catalysts on oxides,
active carbons and mesoporous systems. Therefore in the project she will supervise the functionalization of
the mesoporous carbons prepared and to their characterization. The scientific results are reported in 120
publications on qualified international journals, two patents and more than 90 communications at national
and international Congresses.
She collaborates actively with industrial partners (Sud Chemie,Taminco), and several research groups, in
Europe (University College of London, Prof. Catlow and Dr Dimitratos; University of Valencia, Prof. Nieto;
Karlsruher Tech Institute, Dr Wang, RWTH Institut für Technische und Makromolekulare Chemie, Prof
Palkowitz) and in United States (Oak Ridge National Laboratory TN, USA, Dr.Vieth). From 2002 to 2006 she
was the Referent of the research topic concerning with liquid phase gold catalysed oxidations, inside the
European project AURICAT (HPRNN-CT-2002-00174). In 2007 she was funded by Fondazione Cariplo on
“Metal based nanostructures materials for catalysis” and in 2009 on the project “Metallic nanoparticles:
the issue of stability for their application”. In 2012 she was awarded by ISIS Grant Co-investigator,
“Investigation of the role of functionalization in the catalytic activity of Au nanoparticles on carbon
nanofibers” (ISIS Beam time application-RB1310041) and renewed Euminafab project "TEM characterization
of metal nanoparticles on the surface or inside the framework of the support "(Project No: 1042 and 1104,
2014-2016) with the Karlsruher Tech Institute.
Publications in 2015:
1. Alberto Villa, Sebastiano Campisi, Khaled M. H. Mohammed, Nikolaos Dimitratos,Floriana
Vindigni, Maela Manzoli, Wilm Jones,Michael Bowker, Graham J. Hutchings and Laura Prati
Tailoring the selectivity in glycerol oxidation by tuning the acid-based properties of Au catalysts
Catal. Sci. Technol. ,2015,5,1126
2. Alberto Villa Sebastiano Campisi, Carine E. Chan-Thaw, Davide Motta,Di Wang, Laura Prati
Bismuth modified Au-Pt bimetallic catalysts for dihydroxyacetone production,
Catalysis Today 249 (2015) 103–108
3. Carine E. Chan-Thaw , Sebastiano Campisi , Di Wang , Laura Prati and Alberto Villa
Selective Oxidation of Raw Glycerol Using Supported AuPd Nanoparticles
Catalysts 2015, 5, 131-144
4. Carine E. Chan-Thaw, Alberto Villa, Gabriel. M. Veith and Laura Prati
Identifying the role of N-heteroatoms location in the activity of metal catalyst for alcohol oxidation
ChemCatChem 7(2015) 1338
5. Lidia E. Chinchillaa,∗, Carol M. Olmosa, Alberto Villab, Anna Carlssonc, Laura Pratib,Xiaowei
Chena, Ginesa Blancoa, José J. Calvinoa, Ana B. Hungría
Ru modified Au catalysts supported on ceria-zirconia for the selective oxidation of glycerol
Catalysis Today 253 (2015) 178–189
6.Valentina Pifferi, Gianluca Facchinetti, Alberto Villa, Laura Prati, Luigi Falciola
Electrocatalytic activity of multiwalled carbon nanotubes decoratedby silver nanoparticles for the
detection of halothane
Catalysis Today 249 (2015) 265–269
7. Alberto Villa, Carine E. Chan-Thaw, Sebastiano Campisi, C.L.Bianchi, Di Wang, Paul G. Kotula,
Christian Kübel, Laura Prati
AuRu/AC as an effective catalyst for hydrogenation reactions
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2015, DOI: 10.1039/C5CP00632E
8. Carine E. Chan-Thaw, Alberto Villa, Di Wang, Vladimiro Dal Santo, Alessio Orbelli Biroli,
Gabriel M. Veith, Arne Thomas and Laura Prati
PdHx entrapped in covalent triazine framework modulates selectivity in glycerol oxidation
ChemCatChem 7, 2015, 2149
9. ALBERTO VILLA, NIKOLAOS DIMITRATOS, CARINE E. CHAN-THAW, CERI
HAMMOND, LAURA PRATI, GRAHAM J. HUTCHINGS
Glycerol oxidation using gold containing catalysts
Acc. Chem. Res., 2015, 48 , pp 1403–1412
10. Alberto Villa, Davide Ferri, Sebastiano Campisi, Carine E. Chan-Thaw, Ye Lu, Oliver
Kröcher,and Laura Prati
Operando FTIR-ATR: studies on the different selectivity observed in benzyl alcohol oxidation
ChemCatChem 7, 2015, 2534
11. Alberto Villa,[a] Marco Schiavoni,[a] Carine E. Chan-Thaw,[a] Pasquale F. Fulvio,[b,c] Richard T.
Mayes,[c] Sheng Dai, [b,d] Karren L. More,[e] Gabriel M. Veith,[e] and Laura Prati
Acid Functionalized Mesoporous Carbon: an efficient support for Ru catalyzed ϒ-Valerolactone
production
ChemSusChem (2015) 8, 2520–2528
12. Rogers, Scott; Catlow, C. Richard; Chan-Thaw, Carine; Gianolio, Diego; Gibson, Emma;
Gould, Anna; Jian, Nan; Logsdail, Andrew; Palmer, Richard; Prati, Laura; Dimitratos, Nikolaos;
Villa, Alberto; Wells, Peter
Tailoring Gold Nanoparticle Characteristics and the Impact on Aqueous-Phase Oxidation of
Glycerol"
ACS Catal., 2015, 5 , pp 4377–4384