prof. Ing. Libor Čapek, Ph.D.

Prof. Ing. Libor Čapek, Ph.D., completed his doctoral studies in the group of Dr. B. Wichterlová at J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry, successfully completing his studies at the University of Pardubice in 2004. For his dissertation he was awarded the “Award of Ministry of Education for Excellent Students and Graduates”. In 2005 he joined the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Faculty of Chemical Technology of the University of Pardubice, where he still works. In 2009 he was appointed Associate Professor in Physical Chemistry. In 2017 he was appointed Professor of Physical Chemistry.

Scientific interest

• Photocatalysis: water splitting, characterization of optical and electronic properties of photocatalysts
• Heterogeneous catalysis: redox catalysis (oxidative dehydrogenation of light alkanes, deoxygenation), basic catalysis (aldol condensation, analysis of basic sites, layered double hydroxide based catalysts)

Scientific activities

Prof. Čapek focuses on the issue of heterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis. As part of basic research, he focuses on the identification of key parameters influencing the activity and selectivity of chemical reactions in the presence of a solid catalyst or photocatalyst. In detail, it concerns the research of active centers and the targeted preparation of solid catalysts with a high content of active sites. Over time, these were studied, for example, catalysts suitable for selective catalytic reduction of NOx and oxidative dehydrogenation of light hydrocarbons. Currently, research is focused on solid basic catalysts suitable for aldol condensation and Guerbet reactions and TiO₂-based photocatalysts suitable for photocatalytic water splitting.

Prominent international cooperation

• Äbo Akademi University, Finland
• Institute of Materials Science of Seville, Spain
• Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland

Bibliometric indicators

Number of papers 93, H-index 30, Total number of citations 2616

Two most important projects carried out from the position of principal investigator or co‑investigator

• Advanced analysis of the relationship between optical/electron/textural/structural properties of TiO2 doped materials and its photocatalytic activity, 2017 - 2019, Czech Science Foundation (GACR) (GA17-20737S)
• Quantifying the basicity of reconstructed layered double hydroxides and correlating this with their performance in base-catalysed reactions, 2019 - 2021 Czech Science Foundation (GACR) (GA19-22978S)

Two most important publicatins

• Smoláková L., Dubnová L., Kocík J., Endres J., Daniš S., Priecel P., Čapek L.: In-situ characterization of the thermal treatment of Zn-Al hydrotalcites with respect to the formation of Zn/Al mixed oxide active in aldol condensation of furfural, Applied Clay Science, 157 (2018) 8 - 18
• Dubnová L., Zvolská M., Edelmannová M., Matějová L., Reli M., Drobná H., Kuśtrowski P., Kočí K., Čapek L.: Photocatalytic decomposition of methanol-water solution over N-La/TiO2 photocatalysts, Applied Surface Science, 469 (2019) 879 - 886

Awards

• Award of Ministry of Education for Excellent Students and Graduates (2004)