International recognition for electrochemical research at Mainz University as the basis for sustainable technical innovations
11 November 2019
Chemistry Professor Siegfried R. Waldvogel from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) receives the 2020 Manuel M. Baizer Award from the Electrochemical Society (ECS), an international association based in the USA supporting scientific inquiry in the field of electrochemistry and solid-state science and technology. The Manuel M. Baizer Award, named after American chemist Manuel Mannheim Baizer, is considered one of the most prestigious awards in electrochemistry and is presented every two years. Waldvogel is only the second German to ever receive the award, which he will be presented with at the ECS annual conference in Montreal in May 2020. "So far the Manuel M. Baizer Award has been granted to very few European researchers," said Waldvogel. "This is all the more reason for me to be proud about it, because it illustrates the brilliance and impact of electrochemical research in Mainz."
Professor Siegfried Waldvogel is Head of the Institute of Organic Chemistry at JGU, speaker of the Sustainable Chemistry as the Key to Innovation in Resource-efficient Science in the Anthropocene (SusInnoScience) top-level research area of the university, funded by the Rhineland-Palatinate Research Initiative, and Director of the Gutenberg Research College (GRC), the central institution for promoting cutting-edge research at JGU. He has been working for about 20 years in electrosynthesis, a discipline that replaces chemical reagents by electricity and thus forms the basis for particularly sustainable chemical product manufacturing. His activities have resulted in more than 30 patents and the launch of the start-up ESy-Labs GmbH. "Electrochemistry helps avoid the use of scarce and precious metals," explained Waldvogel. "In connection with the global energy transition and the generation of electricity from renewable energy, the electrification of chemistry is unavoidable, simply because energy surpluses can be used for the production of valuable products."