University and Political Celebrities Get Together for Ground-Breaking Ceremony of the New CNC Building on July, 11th

University President  A. Forchel , University Chancellor U. Klug, President of the Regional Authorities of Lower Franconia  P. Beinhofer, Secretary of State G. Eck, Member of Bavarian Parliament  O. Jörg, Mayor of Würzburg A. Bauer, Head of the State Construction Authorities Würzburg J. Fuchs, Dean of the Faculty  T. Hertel and Frank Würthner symbolically set the first cut of the spade together last Friday morning.

The new research center of the CNC, with Prof. Frank Würthner as head, is part of the interdisciplinary project “Solar Technologies Go Hybrid”. SolTech is a 50 million euro interdisciplinary project initiated by the Federal State of Bavaria to explore innovative concepts for converting solar energy into electricity and non-fossil fuels.

The research focus of the CNC laboratories lies on arranging small organic molecules into bigger molecular super structures, absorbing sunlight and transporting it to electrodes which is subsequently being converted into electricity. Another goal is to develop a kind of “artificial photosynthesis”, which possibly helps to reduce carbon dioxide and produce high energy raw-materials such as sugar, starch and methane.

University President Alfred Forchel was proud about the new building which will not only be the university’s “new flagship of energy research”, but will also provide 50 workplaces for young scientists. According to Joachim Fuchs, Head of the State Construction Authorities Würzburg, the new laboratories will probably start operations in the middle of 2016.