New methods: faster, safer, greener

Chemist from the University of Göttingen receives ERC Advanced Grant. Professor of Chemistry, Lutz Ackermann from Göttingen University has received an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC will fund his project "Electrochemical Bond Functionalization (ElectroFun)" for five years with an award of around 2.5 million euros. The development of environmentally friendly production methods is one of the greatest challenges facing society today. This is where the ElectroFun project excels: it brings together two resource-saving concepts by combining the conversion of otherwise inert molecules with electrocatalysis. The overarching goal is to replace the use of toxic reagents and chemicals by using green electricity and to control the selectivity of electrocatalytic transformations of biomolecules. Using external stimuli provided by renewable forms of energy, waste products can thus be minimised and lengthy synthesis sequences bypassed.