"Inorganic Materials Chemistry enables key transformations for our future energy system. By gaining  fundamental insight into functional materials and educating young researchers, I strive to further our knowledge in this important field."

The research of Jan Philipp Hofmann is centered around the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy by (photo)electrochemical water splitting and CO₂ reduction. The main focus of the Solar Fuels Catalysis team is on the development and application of advanced spectroscopy and synchrotron-based X-ray structural techniques. The aim is to arrive at comprehensive experimental structure-property relationships and mechanistic insight under in-situ conditions, and to design and prepare functional (nano)materials for chemical energy conversion. Techniques to assess interface energetics and surface chemistries play a key role and are actively applied and developed further. Examples are laser-triggered time-resolved infrared spectroscopy for the investigation of charge carrier and adsorbate dynamics in inorganic photoabsorbers, and photoelectron spectroscopies. The current portfolio is complemented by Hofmann's past experience in surface chemistry and model catalysis, where also theoretical modelling played a significant role.

Jan Philipp Hofmann studied chemistry at Justus-Liebig University (JLU) in Giessen, Germany and at Roskilde University, Denmark. He graduated in 2005 with a thesis in organic chemistry and went on to obtain his PhD in physical chemistry from JLU Giessen in 2009 in the group of professor Herbert Over, with a surface science study on chlorinated ruthenium dioxide model catalysts. In 2010, he was a postdoctoral researcher in Giessen in a joint industry-academia project on chlorine recycling. In 2011, he became a postdoc with professor Bert Weckhuysen at Utrecht University. In spring 2013, he became assistant professor (tenured in May 2016) in the Inorganic Materials Chemistry group of professor Emiel Hensen at Eindhoven University of Technology. Per April 2020, he moved to TU Darmstadt, Germany to become full professor in Surface Science.