Qualifications:

• MSc, Chemical Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (2007)
• PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town (2011)

Professional Affiliations:

• Associate member of the Royal Society of Chemistry
• Distinguished International Associate of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Secretary of the Catalysis Society of South Africa
• Board member of the European Federation of Catalysis Societies
• Member of the Editorial Board of Applied Catalysis A: General

Research Affiliations:

• Catalysis Institute

Research Interests:

• Synthesis gas chemistry
• CO₂ activation
• Power-to-X
• Nanoparticle synthesis
• Plastic recycling

Biography:

Prof Fischer studied chemical engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany before joining the DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence in Catalysis c*change at the University of Cape Town as a PhD student in 2007.

After graduation in 2011, Nico joined BASF SE in Ludwigshafen, Germany, as research team leader and worked on selective oxidation catalysts. In 2014 he returned to the Catalysis Institute at UCT, initially as Senior Research Officer, since 2018 as Associate Professor and since 2023 as Deputy Director of the Catalysis Institute and DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Sustainable Catalysis. Since 2024 he is a full Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and has been appointed as Director of the Catalysis Institute. His work focuses on the development and design of novel catalytic materials used predominantly in synthesis gas conversion and CO2 activation reactions with a strong focus on in situ and operando material characterizations.