Professor Kümmerer receives the Wöhler Prize for Sustainable Chemistry
2023-05-23 Lüneburg/Frankfurt/M. The German Chemical Society (GDCh) announced today that this year's Wöhler Award for Sustainable Chemistry goes to Professor Dr. Klaus Kümmerer from Leuphana University Lüneburg. With this award, the GDCh honours Kümmerer's research achievements in the field of sustainable chemistry.
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Recyclable plastics, wastewater reuse and end-of-life management of solar plants - these are just a few examples of the research areas in which Professor Dr Klaus Kümmerer has made outstanding contributions to sustainable chemistry. In addition, the award winner was one of the first to establish the concept of "benign by design", in which environmental impacts are reduced through the targeted design of molecules.
Kümmerer was able to successfully test the concept in practical examples, such as the development of ionic liquids that are less harmful to the environment and in biodegradable antibiotics. In addition, he is committed to integrating sustainable topics into the education of chemists and has designed and established corresponding courses of study. For his pioneering contributions to the development and implementation of sustainable chemistry, the GDCh will award Kümmerer the Wöhler Prize for Sustainable Chemistry, worth 7500 euros, at the GDCh Science Forum taking place in September.
Klaus Kümmerer has been Professor of Material Resources at Leuphana since 2010. He heads the Institute for Sustainable Chemistry. Further information about Klaus Kümmerer: www.leuphana.de/institute/insc/personen/klaus-kuemmerer.html
Background:
With around 30,000 members, the German Chemical Society (GDCh) is one of the largest chemical scientific societies in the world. Every two years it organises the GDCh Science Forum (WiFo) Chemistry at different locations in Germany. To this most important German chemistry congress, the GDCh also invites international scientists of distinction to give lectures.