PhD Award award of the GDCh Division of Sustainable Chemistry

The PhD Award award 2020 of the GDCh Division of Sustainable Chemistry was awarded to Dr. Kelechukwu N. Onwukamike and Dr. Steffen Tröger-Müller awarded.

Dr. Kelechukwu N. Onwukamike: in recognition of his dissertation entitled ?Sustainable Cellulose Solubilization, Regeneration and Derivatization in a DBU-CO2 Switchable Solvent System?. Dr. Onwukamike investigated the modification of renewable raw materials in his thesis. By using switchable ionic liquids, he achieved a homogeneous modification of cellulose for the first time. He was able to render solubilization of the cellulose much more sustai-nable, and he obtained novel materials with promising properties. Dr. Onwukamike's thesis is characterized by excellent science and convinces due to high degrees of diversity and interdisciplinarity. His work is clearly oriented towards sustainable chemistry. Dr. Onwukamike also succeeded in publishing five articles in high-ranking journals as the first author during his doctoral period. The thesis work was conducted in the framework of a European Horizon 2020 project, mainly in the working group of Prof. Dr. MAR Meier at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, but also at the University of Bordeaux.

Dr. Steffen Tröger-Müller: in recognition of his dissertation entitled ?Truly Sustainable Imidazolium Ionics?. Dr. Tröger-Müller dealt with the development of sustainable energy storage systems as part of his dissertation. He succeeded in synthesizing imidazolium compounds from environmentally friendly starting materials and testing them for their applicability in membranes, for example. In doing so, Dr. Tröger-Müller not only with the scientific-technical facets of sustainability. Rather, it also includes the social dimension and builds a bridge from chemistry as a science to the great task of society as a whole, to bring our lifestyle in harmony with the planetary boundaries. Within the astonishingly short doctoral period of two and a half years, he has already published four articles in high-ranking journals as first author. The dissertation was carried out in the working group of Dr. Clemens Liedel at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Golm.