Dr Jan van de Loosdrecht
Dr Jan van de Loosdrecht has been employed with Sasol for the last 20 years and has worked on the exciting crossroads of technology-innovation, -management, -commercialisation and intellectual property, while utilising
sound business acumen.
Since 1996, he has held several different roles and capacities at Sasol. Initially, Dr van de Loosdrecht was a
member of the research team that was closely involved in technology innovation with respect to the design,
scale-up and commercialisation of Sasol’s cobalt based Fischer-Tropsch catalyst for the ORYX GTL plant in
Qatar. As a result of some of this work, he was a co-author of over 35 articles and co-inventor of over 15 patents.
Dr van de Loosdrecht been accountable for initiating, leading and managing (inter)national research collaborations
on Fischer-Tropsch synthesis related topics between Sasol and University of Cape Town in South Africa and between Sasol and
Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands.
From 2006 until 2008, he has led a team that initiated, developed, scaled up and commercialised Sasol’s cobalt
FT catalyst regeneration technology, of which the scaling up and commercialisation was executed in collaboration
with Evonik, Germany.
From 2008 until 2014, Dr van de Loosdrecht worked in Sasol’s Intellectual Property department as a Technical
Advisor. His accountabilities included developing intellectual property strategies, patent infringement risk studies,
and filing of new patents. Performing detailed competitor analyses was another exciting aspect of the work,
which enabled him to influence Sasol’s research directions.
Furthermore, in this capacity, he actively participated in numerous oral proceedings at the European Patent
Offices in The Hague, The Netherlands, and Munich, Germany, resulting in successful outcomes for the company.
Dr van de Loosdrecht have also been actively involved in setting up contract strategies between academic
institutions and industries as well as between industries themselves.
In addition to normal duties at Sasol, he was an Industrial Fellow from 2010 to 2015 at Eindhoven University of
Technology, The Netherlands, in collaboration with Prof. Hans Niemantsverdriet. During his tenure as Industrial
Fellow, Dr van de Loosdrecht visited the university several times per year, presented lectures and advised on
surface science research programs.
From 2014 to 2016, he was Senior Manager of Catalyst Fundamentals, which dealt with innovative research
management guiding topics from fundamental molecular modelling to applied catalyst preparation and testing, all
with the aim of delivering significant input in commercial technology solutions.
Recently, Dr van de Loosdrecht has taken up the position of Senior Manager Energy & Sustainability at Sasol’s
Strategic Research & Technology department, and is acting Vice President Strategic Research & Technology.
This department is managing Sasol’s innovation pipeline and is mandated to provide new technology solutions
to the company.