On May 24, 2025, the University of Stuttgart opened its doors to the public for Science Day (Tag der Wissenschaft), inviting visitors of all ages to experience research and teaching up close. Laboratories, exhibits, and lecture halls offered hands-on experiments, interactive demonstrations, and exciting insights into current scientific topics.
The CRC 1333 had its own booth again this year, showcasing how our researchers are developing improved chemical catalysts, saving both energy and resources.
Our researchers explained what a catalyst is by having the children experiment with a raw and a cooked potato. When a few drops of hydrogen peroxide were dripped on the potatoes, the raw potato showed a bubbling reaction caused by catalase, an enzyme and a natural catalyst in the potato, which broke down the hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and water. In the boiled potato, the enzyme was destroyed and no reaction took place.


Another every day example used to explain catalysis to our visitors was a contact lens case with a platinum catalyst. The solution used to clean the lenses is hydrogen peroxide, which does a good job of killing any microbes that may have stuck to the lenses, but it’s not very eye-friendly. The platinum catalyst in the lens case wheel is used to completely neutralize the solution by reducing the peroxide to oxygen and water.


Visitors could explore two interactive exhibits from our science exhibition “Was kann Katalyse?”:
In the Glovebox, visitors had the chance to work like a real scientist, manipulating objects with gloves in a sealed environment to experience how researchers handle sensitive materials in the lab.
The Mini Golf Exhibit offered a playful way to understand how catalysts and activitation energy work: with the right “shortcut” on the mini golf course, players could reach the goal faster and with less energy—just like catalysts enable chemical reactions to proceed more efficiently.
Both exhibits proved to be highly popular with visitors of all ages and demonstrated how complex research topics can be made tangible and fun.


It was a succesful and fun Science Day and we look forward to next year!