Elhuyar-Goldschmidt-Award for Frank Würthner

2016 has been a year with many honours for Frank Würthner. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Moreover, US media corporation Thomson Reuters confirmed him as one of only four “highly cited researchers” at the University of Würzburg. Finally, he received the Elsevier Lectureship Award of the Japanese Photochemistry Association and the Elhuyar-Goldschmidt-Award of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry.

The Hermanos Elhuyar - Hans Goldschmidt Lecture is named after the brothers Elhuyar and after Hans Goldschmidt. In 1783 Fausto und Juan José Elhuyar discovered the new element tungsten. Hans Goldschmidt is the inventor of the thermite reaction for the reduction of iron oxide to iron by aluminium. Together with his brother Theodor he was a very successful German entrepreneur. While part of their company was integrated into Evonik in 1999, the Goldschmidt Thermit GmbH still exists.

Also in 1999 the named lecture was initiated with the aim of awarding one German and one Spanish chemist per year, elected by the corresponding chemical society of the partner country. This year, the German Chemical Society (GDCh) awarded Nazario Martín (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) who gave lectures at various German universities in October.

Frank Würthner now gave his lectures about Dye Assemblies for Artificial Photosynthesis in Madrid, Valencia and Tarragona. At the Molecular Science Institute in Valencia he also received the certificate, presented by the President of the Spanish chemical society and the President of the Confederation of Scientific Societies of Spain.