Rudolf-Hoppe Lectureship of the GDCh Division of Solid-State Chemistry & Materials Research

The Solid-State Chemistry & Materials Research Division awarded the Rudolf-Hoppe Lectureship to Professor Thomas Fässler (Technical University of Munich) on 27 September 2022 in Marburg, on the occasion of the 21st Conference on Lectures in Inorganic Chemistry, in recognition of his outstanding work on lithium-ion conductors.

"His excellent interdisciplinary contributions in the field of solid-state and materials research are being honoured. His scientific work is distinguished by its wealth of ideas, the great breadth of his accomplished synthetic work and clearly communicated structure–property relationships. Furthermore, Professor Fässler’s scientific lectures are capable of inspiring a broad audience and are therefore entirely in keeping with the spirit of the prize being awarded."

The Rudolf Hoppe Lecture 2018 was awarded at the Division conference in Regensburg. The awardee of the lecture, which aims to highlight the importance of inorganic solid-state chemistry as an important foundation for all materials development, is Prof. Dr. Mathias Wickleder from the University of Cologne.

"Mathias Wickleder is one of the most significant and influential German-speaking solid-state chemists of the past decade. His work, particularly on compounds with various types of oxoanions, has also attracted considerable attention worldwide. Yet Mathias Wickleder is above all a preparative chemist who, through creative ideas, has opened up routes to compounds whose existence would have been considered impossible just a few years ago. Everyone who has heard one of his lectures can attest to his particular ability to communicate these results to an interested scientific and non-scientific audience."

As part of the Division conference in Innsbruck, the Rudolf-Hoppe Lectureship was awarded for the first time. The newly established named lectureship is intended to highlight the importance of inorganic solid-state chemistry as a crucial foundation for all materials development. The awardee is Professor Tom Nilges (Technical University of Munich).

"Professor Nilges's work is characterised by a broad chemical range and makes substantial contributions to various areas of solid-state and materials chemistry. His investigations into the allotropes of phosphorus, for example, are already included in newer textbooks on inorganic chemistry, while his findings on the chemical modifiability of thermoelectric materials have attracted considerable international attention. Professor Nilges's enthusiasm for his research is palpable in his lively lectures, and the Division is therefore convinced that it has selected a worthy awardee to convey the great importance of solid-state and materials chemistry."