A clean, climate-friendly energy source that is virtually inexhaustible: This is the promise artificial photosynthesis holds. Chemists from the University of Würzburg have now got one step closer to reaching this goal. The scientists present their work in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Frank Würthner has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), an honour that is given to a very small number of non-British RSC members.

In autumn 2015 the Research Training School on molecular biradicals took up its work at the University of Würzburg. Currently the cooperation between chemists and physicists led to a first result: a publication on a new molecule, which is of interest for organic electronics.

Frank Würthner has been invited to give this name lecture, which was established at the University of Cologne in 2014. He succeeds Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Lehn.

Congratulations to Gustavo Fernández. After five very successful years as a junior research group leader at the University of Würzburg he accepted a call from the University of Münster as professor (W2) of organic chemistry.

At the “Kármán Conference“ with the topic “From Molecular Materials to Complex Adaptive Molecular Systems“ in Vaals (Netherlands), Stefanie Herbst, doctoral candidate at the Würthner group, was awarded with one of two prizes for an outstanding poster presentation.

At the “International Symposium on Amphiphilic Polymers, Networks, Gels and Membranes” (APNGM15) in Budapest, Hungary, Daniel Görl, doctoral candidate at the Würthner Group, was awarded with the prize for the best poster.

Frank Würthner recently has become a member of the editorial board of Organic Chemistry Frontiers. He will particularly strengthen the area of functional organic molecules.

Prof. Dr. Ben L. Feringa (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) will give the Siegfried Hünig Lecture 2015 on May, 21th.