Catalysis is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst. Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quickly, very small amounts of catalyst often suffice; mixing, surface area, and temperature are important factors in reaction rate. Catalysts generally react with one or more reactants to form intermediates that subsequently give the final reaction product, in the process of regenerating the catalyst.
The University of Bremen is a public university in Bremen, Germany, with approximately 23,500 people from 115 countries. It is one of 11 institutions which were successful in the category "Institutional Strategies" of the Excellence Initiative launched by the Federal Government and the Federal States in 2012. The university was also successful in the categories "Graduate Schools" and "Clusters of Excellence" of the initiative.
Reductive amination is a form of amination that involves the conversion of a carbonyl group to an amine via an intermediate imine. The carbonyl group is most commonly a ketone or an aldehyde. It is a common method to make amines and is widely used in green chemistry since it can be done catalytically in one-pot under mild conditions. In biochemistry, dehydrogenase enzymes use reductive amination to produce the amino acid, glutamate. Additionally, there is ongoing research on alternative synthesis mechanisms with various metal catalysts which allow the reaction to be less energy taxing, and require milder reaction conditions. Investigation into biocatalysts, such as imine reductases, have allowed for higher selectivity in the reduction of chiral amines which is an important factor in pharmaceutical synthesis.
Gerhard Ertl is a German physicist and a Professor emeritus at the Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin, Germany. Ertl's research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells produce energy without pollution, how catalytic converters clean up car exhausts and even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
The Berlin Graduate School of Natural Sciences and Engineering (BIG-NSE) is part of the Cluster of Excellence "Unifying Concepts in Catalysis" (UniCat) founded in November 2007 by the Technical University of Berlin and five further institutions in the Berlin area within the framework of the German government‘s Excellence Initiative.
Helmut Schwarz is a German organic chemist. He has been a professor of chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin since 1978. In 2018, he was elected a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Frank Glorius is a German chemist and W3-Professor of organic chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Münster.
Dorothea Fiedler is a chemical biologist and also the first female director of the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie in Berlin, Germany.
Sophie Carenco is a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, working on nanochemistry at the Laboratory of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Paris. Her research focuses on novel synthetic routes of exotic nanomaterials for energy application such as CO2 capture.
The Berlin University Alliance is a consortium of three universities and one hospital in Berlin: the Free University of Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin, the Technical University of Berlin, and the Charité – Berlin University of Medicine.
María Escudero-Escribano is a Spanish chemist. Her research considers the design of materials for catalysis, fuel cells and sustainable chemistry. She works at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) as an ICREA Research Professor since September 2022. Formerly she was director of the Nano-Electrochemical group at the University of Copenhagen.
John A. Gladysz, an organometallic chemist, is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Dow Chair in Chemical Invention at Texas A&M University. Professor Gladysz is a native of the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. He obtained his B.S. degree from the University of Michigan (1971) and his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University (1974). He subsequently held faculty positions at UCLA (1974-1982) and the University of Utah (1982-1998). He then accepted the Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. In 2008, he returned to North America as a distinguished professor and holder of the Dow Chair in Chemical Invention at Texas A&M University.
Matthias Kraume is a German Chemical and Process Engineer and university professor. He is a professor of process engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and a member of the advisory board of Chemie Ingenieur Technik (CIT), the monthly journal of the Society of German Chemists (GDCh).
Peter Strasser is a German chemist. He is the winner of the 2021 Faraday Medal.
Juri Rappsilber is a German chemist in the area of mass spectrometry and proteomics.
The Wilhelm Ostwald Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Leipzig, located at Linnéstraße 2 in Leipzig, is the oldest physical chemistry institute in Germany. It is one of seven institutes of the Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy of the University of Leipzig. The institute was ceremoniously inaugurated in 1898 by its first director, Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald, and has borne the official name "Wilhelm Ostwald Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry" since 1998.
Arne Thomas is a German chemist who researches porous and nanostructured materials for catalytic applications.
Janina Kneipp is a German scientist who is Professor of Physical Chemistry Humboldt University of Berlin. Her research considers surface enhanced Raman scattering and plasmonic enhancement in multi-modal micro spectroscopy.
Ulrike I. Kramm is a German chemistry professor at Technische Universität Darmstadt. Her research considers the development and characterisation of metal catalysts for fuel cells, CO2 conversion and solar fuels.
Professor Günther Rupprechter is a distinguished Austrian scientist, full professor and currently Head of the Institute of Materials Chemistry, Technische Universität Wien. He is renowned for his contributions to the fields of physical chemistry, surface science, nanoscience and nanotechnology, particularly in the area of catalytic surface reactions on heterogeneous catalysts, identifying fundamental reaction steps at the atomic level by in situ and operando spectroscopy and microscopy.
