Xile Hu

Abstract

ChemCatChemVolume 11, Issue 14 p. 3127-3127 InterviewFree Access Xile Hu First published: 30 May 2019 https://doi.org/10.1002/cctc.201900931AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Graphical Abstract Xile Hu was interviewed in celebration of his Royal Society of Chemistry Homogeneous Catalysis Award. Xile Hu Professor Hu was interviewed in celebration of his Royal Society of Chemistry Homogeneous Catalysis Award. Date of birth: August 7, 1978 Position: Professor of Chemistry, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) E-mail: [email protected] Homepage: http://lsci.epfl.ch ORCID: 0000-0001-8335-1196 Education: 2000 B.Sc. Peking University (P. R. China). 2004 PhD under the supervision of Prof. Karsten Meyer, University of California at San Diego (USA). 2005–2007 Postdoctoral scholar under the supervision of Prof. Jonas C. Peters, California Institute of Technology (USA). Awards: 2019 Royal Society of Chemistry Homogeneous Catalysis Award 2018 Resonate Award, Caltech 2017 National Latsis Prize of Switzerland Hobbies: Napping; travel (for pleasure); complaining Figure 1Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Xile Hu I admire people who engage themselves to make the world a better place. The thing I like most about my work is the substantial freedom in research. I would have liked to have discovered a reaction that matters. Guaranteed to make me laugh is seeing memes of reviewer 3 (hint: there is a site called shitmyreviewersays). What prompted you to investigate the topics you are interested in? Often I am problem-inspired. But sometimes I enter a new field impulsively, after wandering around intellectually or reading a paper in that field. What aspects of your research do you find most exciting? Our research is broad and encompasses homogeneous, heterogeneous, and biocatalysis. We can both make and measure. Now we try to connect these three traditionally distinct domains in catalysis. Do you have any tips you would like to share with early-career scientists? Originality is probably the best ticket to peer recognition. My 3 top papers: 1“Nickamine and Analogous Nickel Pincer Catalysts for Cross-Coupling of Alkyl Halides and Hydrosilylation of Alkenes”: R. Shi, Z. Zhang, X. Hu, Acc. Chem. Res. 2019, DOI 10.1021/acs.accounts.9b00118. (This account summarizes our work on Nickamine and related nickel pincer compounds, which had lifted my independent career.) 2“An Unconventional Iron Nickel Catalyst for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction”: F. Song, M. M. Busch, B. Lassalle-Kaiser, C.-S. Hsu, E. Petkucheva, M. Bensimon, H. M. Chen, C. Corminboeuf, X. Hu, ACS Cent. Sci. 2019, 5, 558. (Along the development of an OER catalyst with off-scale activity, we proposed a bifunctional mechanism which might overcome the limitation of scaling relationship in OER.) 3“Amorphous Molybdenum Sulfide Films as Catalysts for Electrochemical Hydrogen Production in Water”: D. Merki, S. Fierro, H. Vrubela, X. Hu, Chem. Sci. 2011, 2, 1262. (The discovery of a novel class of HER catalyst. It took almost 2 years to settle the referees, but time has proven the value of the paper, which is cited 100 times a year for the last 8 years.) Volume11, Issue14July 18, 2019Pages 3127-3127 This article also appears in:Catalysis Awards FiguresReferencesRelatedInformation