Hinweis: Aufgrund von geplanten Wartungsarbeiten wird die Website am Mittwoch, 30. April 2025, ab 15:00 Uhr nicht erreichbar sein.
Wir bitten dadurch entstandene Unannehmlichkeiten zu entschuldigen und danken für das Verständnis.
To path indicator Subpages of “Newsdetail“ To navigation by target groups To navigation by topic To quick access To footer with other services
To content
Panoramic view on the North Campus © Jürgen Huhn​/​TU Dortmund
DEVELOPMENT OF ASYMMETRIC ORGANOCATALYSIS

RESOLV Researcher Benjamin List Receives the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

-
in
  • Research
  • Top News
Portrait of Professor Benjamin List © Frank Vinken für MPI für Kohlenforschung
Professor Benjamin List, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is Director at the Max-Planck-Institute für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr and Head of Research in the Cluster of Excellence “Ruhr Explores Solvation” (RESOLV).
Prof. Benjamin List is set to receive the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside the British David MacMillan for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of chemical catalysis. The two researchers found that small organic molecules can also be used as catalysts for chemical reactions. List is Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr and Head of Research in the Cluster of Excellence “Ruhr Explores Solvation” (RESOLV), which is based at TU Dortmund University and Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB).

“It’s wild,” says RESOLV spokesperson Prof. Martina Havenith. “We are extremely happy for Benjamin List and delighted that his outstanding, pioneering work in the field of asymmetric counteranion directed catalysis (ACDC) is being recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.” Prof. Manfred Bayer, President of TU Dortmund University, also congratulated the RESOLV researcher: “This Nobel Prize is a great honor for Benjamin List, for research in the Ruhr area and, in particular, for the RESOLV Cluster of Excellence. We sincerely congratulate him on this award!”

Benjamin List has been involved in RESOLV since the Cluster of Excellence it began in 2012. “I still remember how he was immediately enthusiastic about the idea of positioning solvation science as a new research area at the core of a cluster initiative,” Martina Havenith recalls. The federal and state governments have been supporting RESOLV since 2012, and TU Dortmund University and RUB have been acting as host universities since 2019. Around 200 researchers are working towards understanding the role of solvents in chemical reactions. Reactions of this kind, such as catalytic processes, usually occur in the liquid phase. The role of the surrounding fluids has long been neglected, but it is becoming more and more evident that the solvent plays an active role in controlling chemical reactions. These insights into the role of solvent molecules are being applied to new concepts for industry – for example, for the production of chemicals or active ingredients.

TU Dortmund University, RUB, the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT in Oberhausen, the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr, and the Max-Planck-Institute für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf all cooperate in RESOLV.

More information on the RESOLV Cluster of Excellence

Contact for further information:

To top of page