UniSysCat researcher Markus Antonietti, has been awarded the prestigious Solvay Chair in Chemistry in 2024. Since 2006, this prize has honoured exceptionally curious minds in the field of chemistry in order to strengthen Ernest Solvay's idea of international cooperation. UniSysCat warmly congratulates on this great award!
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Markus Antonietti is the director of the Colloid Chemistry department at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, where, among other things, he is researching new catalysts for green chemistry. The Solvay Chair enabled him to give lectures on his research on a tour of Belgium, which he started with a public inaugural lecture at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, followed by visits to research groups at the same university and those of Ghent, Louvain la Neuve, Mons and Leuven. The central theme of his presentations was the ‘black magic’ of carbon materials, which can replace transition metals as catalysts for some of the most important reactions and thus revolutionize chemistry and make it more environmentally friendly.
Every year, the Belgian Solvay Institutes award one Solvay Chair in Physics and one in Chemistry. The international Solvay Chairs enable an outstanding scientist to travel to Belgium for a period of one to two months to give lectures on his or her work to researchers in the relevant field. The Chair's programme begins with an inaugural lecture aimed at a wide audience.
The Solvay Institutes are named after the Belgian chemist Ernest Solvay, who founded the International Institute for Physics in 1912 and the International Institute for Chemistry in 1913. The mission of the institutes is to support and develop curiosity-driven research in physics, chemistry and allied fields with the purpose of "enlarging and deepening the understanding of natural phenomena". Their central activity is the organization of the celebrated Solvay Conferences on Physics and on Chemistry.