Titanium as the key to sustainable catalyses

Catalysts are at the heart of chemical research and industry. They are indispensable for the production of medicines, plastics or fuels: they accelerate reactions without being consumed themselves. Without them, many processes would only take place very slowly or not at all.

Catalysts based on the metal titanium are widely used in polymer chemistry. They enable the production of plastics for yoghurt pots and other packaging, for example. "Beyond that, however, there are very few fields of application," says Gabriele Hierlmeier, junior professor at the University of Würzburg.

The chemist wants to change that - because titanium catalysts have many advantages. The metal is readily available on earth, inexpensive and non-toxic. This makes it an environmentally friendly alternative to other catalysts, which often contain expensive and toxic heavy metals.

Funding flows into new doctoral positions

With this research idea, Gabriele Hierlmeier has successfully applied to the German Research Foundation (DFG) for an Emmy Noether Group. She will receive a good one million euros over the next six years to further advance her work. The money will also enable her to create additional doctoral positions and expand her team, which currently consists of five people.

"The Emmy Noether funding is perfect for me at this point in time," says Gabriele Hierlmeier, who has been teaching and researching at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry since 2023. "We can build on our promising preliminary work and maximise the results thanks to the funding."

Focus on the fundamental steps of catalysis

The challenge for the group is that important reaction steps in catalysis with titanium, known as reductive elimination, are still poorly understood.

Hierlmeier's team therefore wants to investigate how these crucial steps take place and how they can be controlled - for example using light, heat or additional reaction partners. The end result should be new strategies for the conversion of simple hydrocarbons into complex molecules that are important for drug production, for example.

Preliminary work by the Würzburg professor shows: Titanium catalysts can be activated quite simply with ordinary visible light. This finding was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 2025. It could form the basis for developing energy-efficient and sustainable processes with titanium catalysts.

For researchers in the early stages of their careers

With the Emmy Noether Programme, the DFG offers outstanding researchers in the early stages of their career the opportunity to qualify for university professorships by independently leading a group. The programme is named after the German mathematician Emmy Noether (1882-1935).

Contact

Dr Gabriele Hierlmeier, Junior Professor of Inorganic Molecular Chemistry and Catalysis, University of Würzburg, gabriele.hierlmeier@uni-wuerzburg.de

Website of the junior professorship