Klaus Müllen honored with the Adolf-von-Baeyer-Denkmünze

Professor Klaus Müllen, director at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz, was honored with the Adolf-von-Baeyer commemorative medal by the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, the German Chemical Society (GDCh). Müllen received the award during the opening event of the Chemical Scientific Forum in Darmstadt hosted by the GDCh on September 1st. The society therewith acknowledged Müllen's outstanding scientific contribution to organic chemistry, polymer chemistry and material science, so the explanation. The Adolf-von-Baeyer commemorative medal was endowed in 1910 by the industrialist and chemist Carl Duisberg in honor of his teacher Adolf von Baeyer, who - among other things - received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1905 for the synthesis of indigo. Since then the commemorative medal is awarded to scientists who have rendered outstanding services to chemical research.

Klaus Müllen is considered the most frequently cited chemist in Germany and has promoted scientific progress significantly with his work. With approximately 1.500 published articles in leading specialist journals and numerous patents he is ranked as the initiator of lively scientific exchange. As university professor and later as director at the MPI-P he set the incentive for practical developments with his fundamental research work. Some to be named are the synthesis and characterization of polycyclic aromatics and of functional fluorescent dyes, or different ways of retrieving graphene, with which Müllen opened the doors to nano-electronics of the future. Besides his research activities, he is very involved in the concerns of his professional field, for instance as President of the GDCh (2008/2009).

Among the prizes and honors Klaus Müllen has been awarded so far is also the Philip Morris Research Prize (1997), the Award of the Society of Polymer Science, Japan (2009), as well as in the year 2011 the international prestigious Award of the American Chemical Society (ACS). In 2013 Müllen was accepted in the illustrious circle of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Source: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P)