Arjan W. Kleij received his MSc (honors, 1996) and PhD (cum laude, 2000) in chemistry from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. His PhD work was conducted in the group of Prof. Gerard van Koten, and focused on the application of dendrimer- and hyperbranched polymer-supported homogeneous catalysts. Part of his PhD was carried out at the University of Freiburg in a collaborative project with Prof. Holger Frey. In 2000, he moved to industry expanding his research experience, and worked for more than 3 years at Avantium as a project leader in its pharmaceutical division targeting biopolymer synthesis. At a later stage of his career (2005), he joined Hexion as a research scientist in the Epoxy & Phenolic Resins Division (EPRD). There, he focused on process optimization of chemical intermediates for coating and resin applications. He joined the group of Prof. Javier de Mendoza (UAM, Madrid, Spain) as a postdoctoral fellow in 2002, and continued postdoctoral work with Prof. Joost Reek at the HIMS institute at the University of Amsterdam (2003–2005, NL) in the field of supramolecular catalysis. In October 2006, he accepted a position as Group Leader at ICIQ in Tarragona (Spain).
In 2000 he received an NWO TALENT fellowship, was elected ICREA junior fellow in 2006, and featured in an “Author Profile section” of Angewandte Chemie in 2018. He joined Organic Chemistry Frontiers (RSC) as an Associate Editor (2019), fulfills the same role at Green Synthesis and Catalysis (Elsevier) since 2021 and started as an associate editor of Green Chemistry (RSC) in 2025. In 2020, he was recognized with the Excellence Award of the Spanish Chemical Society (RSEQ), in 2021 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), in 2023 he received both the European Sustainable Chemistry Award (ESCA) and the Scientific Excellence Award of the Catalan Chemical Society, and in 2025 he was awarded the GEQO Rafael Usón Medal. Since 2023, he is the scientific coordinator of the HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN-JD joint doctoral network “D-Carbonize”. He also was an invited professor at Tokyo University in 2022.
His previous and ongoing appointments include the editorial board of Green Chemistry (2025-), and the advisory boards of Advanced Synthesis & Catalysis (2025-), ChemSusChem (2020-), ChemCatChem (2021-) and ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2021). He also is/was a member of the editorial boards of ChemSusChem (2016–2019), the Journal of CO2 Utilization (since 2017) and Industrial Chemistry & Materials (since 2022). In 2016, he chaired the 1st Carbon Dioxide Conversion Catalysis (CDCC-1) conference in Portugal, in 2019 the 4th EuCheMS Congress on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (EuGSC-4) in Tarragona, and in 2025 he co-chairs the first bilateral symposium on organic chemistry between the Netherlands and Spain (SNOCS-1). Since 2024, he is part of the governing board of the Division of Green Chemistry (GEQV) of the Spanish chemical society (RSEQ).
His main research interests are in the area of the catalytic valorization of carbon dioxide and other biobased carbon sources, the development of new reactivity using organic carbonates as modular precursors for new engineering and circular polymers & fine chemicals, and the use of functional heterocycles towards challenging metal- and photo-catalyzed stereoselective transformations. Arjan has (co)authored around 250 international (journal) publications and 6 patent applications, with total citations >19950 (h-index 76, i10-index 203).
