Walter Leitner (chemist)

Walter Leitner (born February 1, 1963 in Pfarrkirchen ) is a German chemist . He is director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion (MPI CEC), where he is the scientific head of the “Molecular Catalysis” department and a professor at RWTH Aachen University , where he holds the chair for technical chemistry and petrochemistry.

Life

Leitner studied from 1982 to 1987 at the University of Regensburg and received his doctorate in 1989 under Henri Brunner at the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry with a thesis on the enantioselective catalytic transfer hydrogenation with formates. In 1990 he did a postdoctoral stay in John Michael Brown's group at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory for Organic Chemistry at Oxford University . In 1991 and 1992 Leitner was a Liebig scholarship holder of the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie at the Inorganic-Chemical Institute of the University of Regensburg. After a three-year activity (1992–1995) at the CO ₂ Chemistry Working Group of the Max Planck Society (Head: E. Dinjus) at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena , he qualified as a professor in the field of “Inorganic Chemistry” and became Appointed private lecturers. He moved to the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim an der Ruhr as a working group leader in the "Organic Synthesis" department , where he took over the technical center management at the beginning of 1998. From April 2000 he initially held the substitute chair for "Technical Chemistry and Petrochemistry" (successor Wilhelm Keim ) at RWTH Aachen University and accepted the following call to this chair in February 2002.

From September 2007, Walter Leitner established the "CAT" catalysis center together with Bayer MaterialScience AG (from September 2015 Covestro AG ) and Bayer Technology Services at RWTH Aachen University, of which he has been scientific director since then.

He was Scientific Editor from 2004 to 2016, then Chair of the Editorial Board of the journal Green Chemistry published by the Royal Society of Chemistry .

During his long-term and ongoing commitment to Dechema , for example, Leitner was on the board of the newly founded “Advanced Fluids” section in 2007 and on the first board of the German Catalysis Society (GeCatS) in 2008.

On October 1, 2017, Leitner was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion (MPI CEC), where he was entrusted with the scientific management of the “Molecular Catalysis” department. Leitner will continue to hold his chair at RWTH as part of a part-time professorship for an initial five years.

Focus of work

Leitner's scientific work focuses on the development of catalysts and catalyst technologies for sustainable chemical processes (green chemistry). The focus is on the development and understanding of the mode of action of molecular catalysts, including detailed experimental and computational investigations of the mechanisms and structure-activity relationships in organometallic catalysis. Particular attention is paid to new material conversions and the use of new raw materials for catalytic synthesis as well as the use of modern reaction media ( supercritical fluids , ionic liquids , polyethylene glycol (PEG), etc.) for catalytic processes. Multiphase catalysis and catalyst immobilization as well as the development of reaction engineering concepts for continuous processes in molecular catalysis are also important research interests. The use of carbon dioxide , both as a raw material at the interface between chemistry and energy and as an environmentally friendly solvent and transport medium for continuous chemical processes, accompanied his scientific career.

Awards (selection)

In 1997 Walter Leitner received the Gerhard Hess Prize from the German Research Foundation , in 1998 the Carl Zerbe Prize from the DGMK , in 2001 the Otto Roelen Medal from Dechema, in 2009 the Wöhler Prize for Sustainable Chemistry from the GDCh and in 2014 together with Jürgen Klankermayer the European Sustainable Chemistry Award from EUChemS . Since 2002 he has been an External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim / Ruhr. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 2010.

On January 1, 2018, Walter Leitner was appointed to the board of trustees of the journal "Angewandte Chemie".

In September 2019 Walter Leitner and researchers from Covestro AG (Christoph Gürtler and Berit Stange) were nominated for the German Future Prize with the project "CO ₂ - a raw material for sustainable plastics" .

Fonts (selection)

• Walter Leitner: Enantioselective catalytic transfer hydrogenation with formates . Dissertation, Regensburg, 1989.
• Walter Leitner: Rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to formic acid Habilitation, Jena, 1995.
• Philip G. Jessop and Walter Leitner (eds.): Chemical Synthesis using Supercritical Fluids . Wiley-VCH, 2007, online- ISBN 978-3-527-61368-7 , doi : 10.1002 / 9783527613687 .
• Walter Leitner and Philip G. Jessop (eds.): Handbook of Green Chemistry - Green Solvents, Vol. 4: Supercritical Solvents . Wiley-VCH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-527-32590-0 .
• Julie B. Zimmerman, Paul T. Anastas, Hanno C. Erythropel, Walter Leitner: Designing for a green chemistry future . In: Science . tape 367 , no. 6476 , January 24, 2020, p. 397-400 , doi : 10.1126 / science.aay3060 .

Web links

• Homepage of the Chair of Technical Chemistry and Petrochemistry
• Homepage of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion
• List of all publications by Walter Leitner at ResearcherID
• Leitner's publications at ORCID

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Life data, publications and academic family tree of Walter Leitner at academictree.org, accessed on February 25, 2018.
2. ^ Green Chemistry
3. ↑ New ProcessNet specialist section "Advanced Fluids" founded , DECHEMA press release from October 18, 2007
4. ^ German Catalysis Society elects first board of directors , DECHEMA press release from September 9, 2008
5. ↑ Christin Ernst: Press release: Prof. Walter Leitner is the new director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion. September 15, 2017. Retrieved December 12, 2017 . 
6. ↑ Walter Leitner and Jürgen Klankermayer - Winners of the European Sustainable Chemistry Award , press release on Green Chemistry Blog
7. ↑ Prof. Leitner is an external scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research. ( Memento of the original from February 11, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release on the website of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research 
8. ↑ New members of the Board of Trustees and the International Advisory Board doi : 10.1002 / anie.201712714, accessed on March 14, 2018
9. ↑ Team 1 - 2019 | German Future Prize. Retrieved March 30, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Enantioselective catalytic transfer hydrogenation with formates
11. ↑ Rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to formic acid