CataLight News

CataLight Young Research Benedikt Bagemihl was awarded one of the Danubius Young Scientist Awards 2023

The Forcheurs Prize was awarded to Prof. Max von Delius (Institute of Organic Chemistry, Ulm University, Germany) and to Dr. Sébastien Ulrich (CNRS, IBMM, University of Montpellier, France) for their collaborative development of "Click amphiphiles for intelligent recognition and transport of RNA by Ambassador Francois Delattre at the French Embassy in Berlin on June 19, 2023. The award recognizes promising collaborations between French and German researchers in the fields of health, pharmacology or chemistry. It is jointly organized by the Science and Technology Department of the French Embassy in Germany and the Franco-German University of Applied Sciences and is awarded to young researchers to promote scientific cooperation between France and Germany.

CataLight PI Birgit Esser has been awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant for her work „NanOBatt“. The grant is endowed with 2 million euros over 5 years.

Prof. Birgit Esser, an expert for organic functional materials, will now join our team an lead the novel project A6. With her expertise, she will further strengthen CataLight's efforts towards the development of noble metal free photosensitizers and catalysts.

Baden-Württemberg's Minister for Science, Research and the Arts, Petra Olschowski, was a guest at the University of Ulm on April 12. It was the inaugural visit of Petra Olschowski, who took office in September 2022. During her visit at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry I, Prof. Dr. Sven Rau familiarized Mrs. Olschowski with the research concept of CataLight. As a highlight of the visit, Mrs. Olschowski was then allowed to photocatalytically produce hydrogen on her own, using a dinuclear Ru-Pt catalyst.

CataLight PI Montaha Anjass has been awarded the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard stipend. The Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation supports talented young female scientists with children with a stipend to support their mobility and freedom to pursue a scientific career.

The annual Thuringian Research Award "Thüringer Forschungspreis" honours scientific excellence at Thuringian universities and research institutions. CataLightee Prof. Prof. Benjamin Dietzek-Ivanšić and former CataLightees Dr. Linda Zedler and Dr. Carolin Müller received the price for the developement of optical methods to decipher key steps during photocatalysis and identify short-lived intermediates. The developed methods of time-resolved absorption-spectroelectrochemistry and operando absorption spectroscopy allow to study catalytic processes in great detail, such as the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy.

CataLightee Prof. Boris Mizaikoff has been awarded the prestigious Fritz-Pregl Medal by the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry for his outstanding achievments on infrared spectroscopy, sensor technology and the development of synthetic receptors.

This year's International Symposioum on the Photochemistry and Photophysics of Coordination Compounds (ISPPCC) will take place at Ulm University at the end of July and is organized by members of CataLight. Registration and Abstract Submission (deadline for Oral Presentations 06/March/2023) are now open! Find more information on speakers and prices on https://www.uni-ulm.de/isppcc/home/

Chemist Prof. Ferdi Karadas from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, has received one of the coveted Georg Forster Research Awards and will investigate surface structures for photocatalytic applications during his 12-month research stay at Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) within the framework of the CataLight Project. The prestigious award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is given to excellent international researchers for their outstanding scientific achievements. 

The CataLight video, created by CataLight and Biofaction has been nominated as one of 174 films from 41 countries for the Science Film Festival. All films accepted into the annual official selection of the Science Film Festival are in competition for six awards bestowed at the festival. Organized by the Goethe-Institut in close cooperation with local partners, the Science Film Festival is a celebration of science communication in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

CataLight was present with two boothes at the Long Night of Science in Jena. Our teams attracted massive attention with hands-on experiments on light-driven charging and with a multimedial presentation of CataLight basic ideas. The concepts were developed by CataLight's Ö1 project.