Interview with Prof. Dr. Benjamin List: Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2021

In an interview with Benjamin List, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, members of the Young Chemists’ Network (JCF) of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) asked him about his science, his career, and the academic system. Benjamin List, Director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Germany, was awarded the Nobel Prize together with David W. C. MacMillan (Princeton University, USA) for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis. After studying chemistry at the Free University of Berlin, he received his doctorate from Goethe University in Frankfurt. He discovered the amino acid proline to be an efficient catalyst and thus co-founded the field of organocatalysis. In 2016, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, which is considered the most important research award in Germany.     

黄鸣龙——我国有机化学的一位先驱

黄鸣龙院士(1898-1979)1919年浙江医药专科学校毕业,1924年德国柏林大学有机药物化学博士;1924-1934年任浙江医专教授、主任,卫生署化学部主任;1934-1940年在欧洲先灵公司等从事研究工作;1940年回国在昆明任中研院化学所研究员,兼任西南联大教授;1945年赴美在哈佛大学,默克公司从事研究工作。1952年绕道欧洲回国,先后在中国人民解放军医学科学院化学系和中国科学院上海有机化学研究所任研究员。1955年当选为中国科学院学部委员(院士)。黄先生一生从事有机化学的教育和研究工作,他在有机化学的“结构与机理”以及“反应和合成”二大方面都作出了在国内外具有深远影响的工作。20世纪40年代黄先生发现了变质山道年4个立体异构体的循环转变,堪称立体化学的经典之作;1948年发表了黄鸣龙还原反应;1952年归国后引领和发展了我国的甾体化学研究,带领了我国甾体药物的生产发展,是我国甾体药物工业的奠基人。黄先生治学严谨,既重视应用研究,又强调基础研究;关注学习新知识、新概念,又更重视实验技术。黄先生教书育人,身体力行,是我国有机化学发展的先驱者和奠基人。     

Preface to Special Issue of Chinese Journal of Catalysis in Memoryof Professor Qin Xin

正This special issue is dedicated to Professor Qin Xin on the occasion of one year of his passing away. This is in recognition of his unique and remarkable contributions to the application of in‐situ molecular spectroscopy for catalysis study, the exploration of nitrides, carbides and HDS(hydrodesulfurization), HDN (hydrodenitrogenation) catalysts,and the development of efficient electrocatalysts for direct alcohol fuel cells.Professor Xin was born in Harbin in April 1939. After graduating from the Department of Chemistry, Jilin University in 1962, he worked in Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics     

On the contribution of A. C. Hurley to theoretical chemistry

Andrew Crowther Hurley was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 11 July 1926 and received his early education at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School. He graduated from the University of Melbourne with high honors in mathematics and natural philosophy and, in 1949, was awarded his M.A. with first class honors in the school of mathematics for his thesis “The Irreducible Crystal Classes in Four Dimensions,” his supervisor being Dr. Hans Schwerdtfeger. From 1950–1952 he was a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, and was awarded a Ph.D. for his research in theoretical chemistry under Sir John Lennard-Jones. In 1953 he returned to Melbourne and joined what was to become the Division of Chemical Physics of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). The award of a fellowship by Trinity College enabled him to spend two more years, 1954–1956, in the Theoretical Chemistry Department of the University of Cambridge, and this was followed by a year with Professor J.C. Slater's solid state and molecular theory group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1957 Andrew again returned to the Division of Chemical Physics in Melbourne, where he has remained, except for the academic year 1962–1963, when he was Visiting Professor in Theoretical Chemistry at Iowa State University.     

Lars Onsager (1903–1976), Chemist-Physicist, on the Silver Anniversary of His Death

The Norwegian-born theoretical chemist-physicist Lars Onsager (1903–1976) received the 1968 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of the reciprocal relations bearing his name, which are fundamental for the thermodynamics of irreversible processes. A recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, which he did not receive until relatively late in life, he taught at the Johns Hopkins and Brown universities, but spent most of his academic career at Yale University (1933–1972). He spent his post-retirement years (1972–1976) as Distinguished University Professor at the University of Miamis Center for Theoretical Studies, where he continued his work with several postdoctoral research fellows.     

Meet the Board of ChemistryOpen: Sheshanath V. Bhosale

Sheshanath V. Bhosale received his PhD from Freie University Berlin (Germany) in supramolecular chemistry under the supervision of Prof. J. H. Fuhrhop in 2004. He then pursued his postdoctoral studies with Prof. S. Matile at University of Geneva (Switzerland) under the auspices of a Roche Foundation Fellowship. This was followed by a stay at Monash University (Australia) for 5 years as an ARC-APD Fellow. He worked at RMIT University, Melbourne (Australia) for 6 years as ARC-Future Fellowship. Currently, Prof. Bhosale is working at the Department of Chemistry, Goa University (India) as a UGC-FRP Professor, His research interests lie in the design and synthesis of π-functional materials, especially small molecules, for sensing, biomaterials, and supramolecular chemistry applications. So far, Prof. Bhosale has produced 185 research articles and his work has been cited more than 4400 times, giving him an h-index of 32. He currently serves as an active Editorial Board member for ChemistryOpen.     

In Memoriam D. Stanley Tarbell (1913–1999), Chemist and Historian of Chemistry

Dr. Dean Stanley Tarbell, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of chemistry at Vanderbilt University, where he served on the faculty from 1967 to 1981, died on May 26, 1999 in Bolingbrook, Ill. Earlier he taught for many years and chaired the chemistry department at the University of Rochester. In retirement, he and his wife, Ann Tracy Tarbell, researched and wrote articles and books on the history of chemistry in the U.S. For his writings he received the American Chemical Societys Dexter Award for Distinguished Contributions to the History of Chemistry in 1989. He was an avid reader and book collector, a linguist who taught himself Arabic, Russian, and classical Greek, and a lifelong baseball fan.     

100 Jahre Einkristallzucht aus der Schmelze

Cars, television, mobile phones, digital cameras, cash machines: Daily life is strongly affected by microchips produced from high purity silicon single crystals via thin wafers. Most of these single crystals are prepared by a process invented by the German‐Polish scientist Jan Czochralski in 1916 in the “Kabelwerk Oberspree (KWO)” of the “Allgemeine Elektricitätsgesellschaft (AEG)” in Berlin‐Oberschöneweide. Czochralski discovered the famous method to pull single crystals by accident: Deep in thought, he dipped his pen not into an ink pot but into a crucible with liquid tin, both standing next to one another on his desk. Quickly he pulled his pen out and observed a thin thread of tin emerging from the tip. After etching, the thread was identified as a single crystal of tin. This observation is probably one of the most important technical inventions of the first half of the 20^th century. In 1917, he left the AEG in Berlin and worked in the metal research laboratory, later belonging to the “Metallgesellschaft”, in Frankfurt/Main. Until today, wafers of high‐purity silicon are prepared by the Czochralski method. Silicon wafers with 200 mm diameter were produced in 1990, 300 mm wafers in 2001. The production of wafers with 450 mm diameter was expected for 2016. Siltronic produced in 2009 the first dislocation‐free silicon single crystal with 450 mm diameter, and other companies followed. However, until now, the 450 mm technology is not standard. This is due to a combination of very high investment costs needed to establish the 450 mm technology and very low prices of microchips.     

In memoriam

Prof. Dr. GüNTER SAUERBREY, 1933–2003 Günter Sauerbrey died on 15 May, 2003, a few days after his 70^th birthday. For 24 years he was responsible for the Laboratory of Medical Techniques and Dosimetry of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin and he also taught at Universities. His important invention was the use of a quartz oscillator as a mass sensor, the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), which he developed in his research for his doctoral thesis at the Technical University at Berlin. He described that method in two often cited papers: Phys. Verhandl., 1957. 8: p. 193 and Z. Physik, 1959. 155: p. 206–222. With the QCM, Sauerbrey introduced a new class of mass measuring devices: inertial balances. The Sauerbrey equations are the basis of all vibrational weighing systems. His experiments on QCM allowed the extension of Einstein’s equivalence principle from uniform fields to time-dependent fields. Further work was on radiometry, thermometry, medical measuring techniques, high-temperature and vacuum physics. Günter Sauerbrey participated at several Conferences on Vacuum Microbalance Techniques and discussed at these events, in particular, applications of the QCM. Requiescat in pace. Erich Robens, Vasile Mecea     

《催化学报》庆祝何鸣元院士八十华诞专刊

《催化学报》以本期专刊的出版庆祝何鸣元院士八十华诞,表达对何先生五十多年来为我国催化及相关领域发展所作出的卓越贡献的崇高敬意!何鸣元先生1940年2月8日出生于上海,1961年毕业于华东纺织工学院(现东华大学)应用化学专业,同年进入石油化工科学研究院工作至今.1980-1984年作为访问学者赴美国西北大学化学系和美国得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校化工系进行合作研究.2000年以来,应邀兼任华东师范大学教授,2003年领导建立上海市绿色化学与化工过程绿色化重点实验室.何鸣元先生担任过许多学术职务.曾任石油化工科学研究院总工程师、学术委员会副主任,中国科学院学部主席团成员、化学部副主任,中国化学会常务理事、绿色化学专业委员会主任,国际催化理事会理事,国际沸石分子筛协会副主席等.何鸣元先生长期从事催化材料、炼油化工催化剂与工艺研究.发明了一系列沸石分子筛合成新方法与炼油催化剂,开发了双反应区催化裂化增产汽油异构烷烃MIP工艺(Maximum Isoparaffin Process)等多个具有自主知识产权的新工艺,为发展我国重油裂化技术、提高催化裂化汽油辛烷值、开发新标准汽油生产技术等作出了突出贡献.何鸣元先生是我国绿色化学的奠基人之一,他以国民经济可持续增长为目标,大力倡导和推动绿色化学与化工学术研究与技术开发.2001年担任科技部国家基础研究重大项目(2001-2005)'石油炼制与基本有机化学品加工的绿色化学'首席科学家,推动了多项绿色炼油与化工新技术的突破和工业应用.针对碳资源利用过程中所面临的效率低、污染物排放严重等问题,2011年,何先生和合作者从碳资源加工、利用和循环等全周期考虑,提出了'绿色碳科学'的概念,对碳资源的高效、清洁、循环利用具有重要的指导作用.近年来,发起并主持了以'可持续发展能源化工的科学基础:绿色碳科学与绿色氢科学'沸石分子筛:等级特性、选择催化与分子工程'绿色生态环境与化学化工'等为主题的香山科学会议以及其它高水平学术会议,为相关学科指出了发展方向.何鸣元先生获得了许多学术奖励和荣誉.他于1995年当选为中国科学院院士,曾获得国家发明二等奖(1995)、何梁何利科学技术进步奖(2001)、中国催化成就奖(2012)、法国教育部棕榈叶骑士勋章(2012)、法国里昂高师荣誉博士学位(2016)、中国分子筛终身成就奖(2019)等,在国内外催化与石油化工界享有崇高的声誉.本期专刊收录了15篇学术论文,内容涉及新型分子筛催化剂的合成、单原子催化、光催化、电催化以及甲烷、二氧化碳、生物质等碳资源的催化转化等,一定程度上反映了何先生过去五十多年的研究兴趣,并展现了当前国际催化科学与技术研究的前沿和进展.在此,我们衷心感谢论文作者、审稿专家和《催化学报》编辑部等相关人员所给予的大力支持.     

On the analysis of ionic surface conduction to unravel charging processes at macroscopic soft and hard solid–liquid interfaces

The electrohydrodynamics of soft interfaces and the processes underlying interfacial charge formation by, for example, unsymmetrical ion adsorption are important aspects of current research on the electrosurface phenomena. In particular, the recent progress in both fields greatly benefits from the now-possible accurate evaluation and quantitative interpretation of (ionic) excess conductivities at solid surfaces and in 3D polyelectrolytic architectures. Achievements in the proper formulation of the conceptual and theoretical framework and in the improvement of measurement capabilities have been tightly connected to the work of Johannes (Hans) Lyklema (1930–2017). Considering his valuable contributions, we herein summarize the theoretical basis of surface conductivity analyses, review the experimental options for the quantification of the surface conductivity at macroscopic planar solid–liquid interfaces, and discuss exemplary surface conductivity case studies for soft and hard interfaces permeable or not to ions and fluid flow.Dedication: Johannes Lyklema (November 23, 1930–October 31, 2017) was a key scientist in colloid and interface science. He completed his doctorate at the University of Utrecht in 1957 under the supervision of Professor J. Th. G. Overbeek with a thesis entitled ‘Adsorption of counterions.’ In 1963, he was appointed a Professor of Physical and Colloid Chemistry at Wageningen Agricultural College (later named Wageningen University), a position he kept until his retirement in 1995. Under his directorate, the Laboratory of Physical and Colloid Chemistry at the Wageningen University became a world-leading research center known for its key research in the fields of interfaces, macromolecules, and electrochemistry. Johannes Lyklema published almost 400 articles and wrote the five-volume text book ‘Fundamentals of Interface and Colloid Science’; he gave lectures in five languages and in five continents, received honorary doctorates in Belgium, Sweden, and Spain, and has been awarded with the Order of the Dutch Lion, to quote only a few of the distinctions and awards he received during his career. In his research, Johannes Lyklema paid particular attention to the analysis and interpretation of the electrosurface phenomena. He was the founder and chairman of the International Advisory Board of the conference series Electrokinetic Phenomena (ELKIN) and section editor on electrokinetics in this journal (Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science). We will remember Johannes Lyklema as an eminent scientist as well as a warm-hearted and outstanding person.     

Fascinated by a chain molecule review of 35 years' research on cellulose

For over 35 years the author has been involved in cellulose research and his retirement next year is the reason why he has undertaken to present a review on some aspects of his investigations on the fascinating substance cellulose. One topic of his research activities is electron microscopy. At the very start, at the Institute for Cellulose Chemistry (T.H. Darmstadt), observations were made on bordered pits and structural details on the walls of wood and pulp fibres. He was able to continue his teacher's, Georg Jayme's, traditional basic research on cellulose at the Institute for Wood Research (University of Munich) where “dreams” of the fifties and sixties such as the visualization of individual molecules and the growing of macrocrystals of cellulose could be realized. Here, the electron microscope became a vital instrument for the study of cellulose chemistry.     

Inter-comparison exercises as a tool for teaching quality assessment: an experience in Spanish universities

Since the academic year 2001–2002, inter-laboratory trials for students of Analytical Chemistry in Spanish Universities have been organised by the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Barcelona in collaboration with the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Cordoba and the University of Huelva. The aim of these exercises is to train students in the use of tools for the assessment and improvement of quality in analytical laboratories.Representative samples of environmental and food analysis, agricultural soils and a type of beer were selected. The ethanol content of the beer and the pH, conductivity, and extractable phosphorus and potassium content in the soil were the chosen analytical parameters.Sample preparation, homogeneity and stability studies, as well as the statistical treatment of data from participants, were carried out by the laboratory Mat Control of the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the University of Barcelona.The paper presented heregives the results obtained after two years of experience.Presented at BERM-9—Ninth International Symposium on Biological and Environmental Reference Materials, June 15–19, 2003, Berlin, Germany.     

Enrique San Román (1945–2019)

An homage to the Argentinian Photochemist Enrique San Román is presented. Enrique led the Photochemistry and Chemical Kinetics research group in the Department of Inorganic, Analytical and Physical Chemistry in the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires from 1984 until his death in July 2019. He left a strong legacy in Chemical Kinetics and Photochemistry in Argentina. He is remembered as a meticulous and very knowledgeable scientist and teacher, a loyal friend and a generous and integer human being.     

Digitalis Research in Berlin–Buch—Retrospective and Perspective Views

“The following remarks consist partially of matter of fact, and partially of opinion. The former will be permanent; the latter must vary with the detection of error, or the improvement of knowledge. I hazard them with diffidence, and hope they will be examined with candour.” These declarations, which stem from the famous book “An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses” by physician William Withering in 1785 in which he introduced preparations from digitalis leaves in the therapy of dropsy (cardiac failure), are cited here by the senior author because of his awareness of the difficulties in presenting a balanced report on his life-long research project on the further development of digitalis. His decision to devote himself to digitalis research originated at the bedside, when as a physician he experienced the grim final stages of cardiac failure in which no real help for the patients is possible. Unfortunately, his research project did not fit into the research program decreed by the Ministry of Science of the German Democratic Republic, so that he was ordered to stop the digitalis project in favor of biomembrane studies. Fortunately, he got round the ban simply by labeling the digitalis-like acting steroids as probes for the cell membrane-located Na⁺/K⁺-transporting ATPase which he had just recognized as the digitalis target (receptor) enzyme. These and other ventures by the authors are collated here for the first time. The aim of this review is to foster straightforward research for solving a major challenge: the development of steroidal drugs for the prevention and cure of cardiac failure.     

August Wilhelm Hofmann—“Reigning Chemist-in-Chief”

One hundred and twenty-five years ago, on November 11th, 1867, the German Chemical Society of Berlin held its inaugural meeting. The main purpose of the Society was to unite pure and applied chemistry and to foster cooperation between academic research and the chemical industry. And, indeed, it soon became the major forum of German and even European chemistry. Its program clearly bears the hallmark of a single individual: August Wilhelm Hofmann, the Society's first president, who died 100 years ago. For his contemporaries, Hofmann represented a new type of chemistry professor. At no time since have professional chemists felt as abundantly endowed with potential for the future and with public esteem. Hofmann's portrait was monumental even then, and still today it would belong in any gallery devoted to our distinguished forebears. Anniversaries provide an opportunity to direct our attention toward the past—and thus to ourselves as well. We are, after all, heirs to that period from which the modern world derives its profile. Questions from our own time lead us to reacquaint ourselves with one of the founders of modern chemistry, but we may also benefit from a fresh look at an epoch which, beneath the surface of prosperity and progress, was as contradictory as our own, an epoch struggling to understand the role of science in the new industrial era.     

An interview with I.M. Kolthoff

Izaak Maurits Kolthoff was born in 1894, in Almelo, Holland. He studied pharmacy at the University of Utrecht, and was awarded a Ph.D. in chemistry there in 1918. He served as Conservator of the Pharmaceutical Institute at the University from 1917 to 1927 and as a privat docent (lecturer) from 1924 to 1927. In 1927 Professor Kolthoff began his long association with the University of Minnesota, serving as Professor and Chief of the Division of Analytical Chemistry until 1962 and since then as Professor Emeritus. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences and of a number of other learned Societies thoughout the world. He has, in the course of his long career, been given many awards. The latest of these is the Special Award of the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh for 1981.     

Alfred Werner: Overlooked Genius of the Periodic System

2019, which was proclaimed by the United Nations as the International Year of the Periodic Table, sees one hundred years since Alfred Werner, the first Swiss to receive a Nobel Prize in chemistry, passed away. The undoubted father of coordination chemistry, he is also well-known for influencing many other fields of chemistry, including organic, inorganic, organometallic, bioinorganic, and stereochemistry. However, one of his more rare and unique contributions to chemistry, his 1905 version of the periodic system, to this day remains overlooked. The simple and elegant idea which he used to construct his periodic table has not been communicated to the English-speaking world, because Alfred Werner published his only original paper on the periodic table in German. Werner's simple mathematical approach lead to overwhelming success with anticipating the future f-block. He managed to predict almost perfectly the number of lanthanides, which was hotly debated at that time. Werner's genius vision was considerably ahead of its time. It was not until the 1940s and the discovery of actinide series when the idea of representing the elements as a 32-column periodic table finally became justified.     

Centenary of the discovery of liquid crystals

On the 14 March 1888 Dr. Friedrich Reinitzer, lecturer in botany at the German University of Prague, sent a letter of 16 pages handwritten in gothic characters to Otto Lehmann, at that time Professor of Physics at the Technical University of Aachen, later in Karlsruhe. Reinitzer addressed Professor Lehmann by the time-honoured title 'Esquire'. He enclosed two samples of the new substances, cholesteryl acetate and cholesteryl benzoate, which “exhibit striking and marvellous apparitions that I do hope that they will be also of interest to you to a certain extent” (cf. (a)). Later on (cf. (b)) he described the physical behaviour of cholesteryl benzoate as follows: “The substance exhibits two melting points, if one may say so. At 145·5˚ it melts to a turbid but absolutely fluid liquid which becomes suddenly clear not until 178·8˚. On cooling, violet and blue colours appear which quickly vanish with the sample leaving lactescently turbid but fluid. On further cooling the violet and blue colours reappear but very soon the sample solidifies forming a white crystalline mass.” Reinitzer concluded his letter with a most servile apology for his bother and expressed his sincerest thanks to Dr. Lehmann for his trouble taken with the possible investigation of the substances (cf. (c)).     

In memoriam

Prof. Ing. Zdeněk Šolc, CSc (21 September 1931–30 September 2006) Prof. Zdeněk Šolc was born in 1931. After finishing his university studies, he joined the University of Pardubice where he remained for more than 50 years. He started to work at the Department of Physical Chemistry. His main fields of interest were: preparation of monocrystals, crystallization from solutions, measuring of physical and chemical properties of solutions. In the 1960's he turned to inorganic technology, studying inoranic pigments and he moved to the Department of Inorganic Technology. In this vast area of science, he achieved his greatest successes, and pigments became his ever-lasting passion up to the end of his life. The research in the field of crystallisation was oriented to development of liquid crystals for use in temperature indication, and materials for integrated circuits; besides that a school of inorganic pigments was formed (M. Trojan, Z. Šolc, D. Brandová) whose main orientation is mixed oxide materials for use in ceramics and enamels. A predominant part of the mentioned research activities was pursued at KAnT in 1990–1996, when the Department was headed by Professor Ing. Zdeněk Šolc. Most of Prof. ŠolcŠs projects were focused on the reactivity of inorganic pigments and powder materials, research of their high-temperature syntheses and rating of their physical and chemical properties. He applied mainly simultaneous thermal analytical techniques: thermogravimetry, differential thermal analysis using dynamic measuring conditions and quasi-isothermal and quasi-isobaric ones, moreover emanation thermal analysis and thermal conductivity measurements. Prof. Zdeněk Šolc was a creative scientist. He published more than 50 scientific papers in international journals and wrote 10 textbooks. He was the author of almost 100 lectures of conferences held in the Czech Republic and foreign countries. He had a silent but a very kind personality and he will be missed very much both by the local and the international communities. Requiescat in pace