Holger Braunschweig is Head and Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg in

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. He is best known for founding the field of

transition metal In chemistry, a transition metal (or transition element) is a chemical element in the d-block of the periodic table (groups 3 to 12), though the elements of group 12 (and less often group 3) are sometimes excluded. The lanthanide and actinid ...

boron Boron is a chemical element; it has symbol B and atomic number 5. In its crystalline form it is a brittle, dark, lustrous metalloid; in its amorphous form it is a brown powder. As the lightest element of the boron group it has three ...

multiple bond Multiple may refer to: Economics *Multiple finance, a method used to analyze stock prices *Multiples of the price-to-earnings ratio *Chain stores, are also referred to as 'Multiples' *Box office multiple, the ratio of a film's total gross to tha ...

ing (transition metal

borylene A borylene is the boron analogue of a carbene. The general structure is R-B: with R an organic moiety (chemistry), moiety and B a boron atom with two unshared electrons. Borylenes are of academic interest in organoboron chemistry. A diradical, sin ...

s), the synthesis of the first stable compounds containing boron-boron and boron-oxygen triple bonds, the isolation of the first non-carbon/nitrogen main-group dicarbonyl, and the first fixation of dinitrogen at an element of the

p-block A block of the periodic table is a set of elements unified by the atomic orbitals their valence electrons or vacancies lie in. The term seems to have been first used by Charles Janet. Each block is named after its characteristic orbital: s-bl ...

of the

periodic table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements into rows (" periods") and columns (" groups"). It is an icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other s ...

. By modifying a strategy pioneered by Prof. Gregory Robinson of the

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

, Braunschweig also discovered the first rational and high-yield synthesis of neutral compounds containing boron-boron double bonds ( diborenes). In 2016 Braunschweig isolated the first compounds of beryllium in the oxidation state of zero.

Education and research career

Braunschweig obtained his Ph.D. and

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

from

RWTH Aachen RWTH Aachen University (), in German ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen'', is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study prog ...

with P. Paetzold and worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Michael F. Lappert, FRS, at the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

. After two years at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

as Senior Lecturer and Reader he took up a Chair of

Inorganic Chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with chemical synthesis, synthesis and behavior of inorganic compound, inorganic and organometallic chemistry, organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subj ...

at the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg in 2002, and is now also the founding director of the Institute for Sustainable Chemistry & Catalysis with Boron (ICB

Professional achievements

In 2009 Braunschweig was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

(DFG) – the highest German-based research prize. He was also awarded the 2014 RSC Main Group Awardbr>
the 2016

Alfred Stock Memorial Prize The Alfred-Stock Memorial Prize or Alfred-Stock-Gedächtnispreis (From 2023: Marianne Baudler Prize) is an award for "an outstanding independent scientific experimental investigation in the field of inorganic chemistry." It is awarded biennially ...

of the German Society of Chemistsbr>
the 2021 Royal Society of Chemistry, RSC Mond-Nyholm Priz

the 2024 American Chemical Society, ACS M. Frederick Hawthorne Awar

and the 2024

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Advanced Environmental Solutions Priz

He is a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...

, a member of the German National Academy of Science (Leopoldina

the

Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities () is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledge within their subject. The general goal of th ...

br>
and the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Art

References

External links

Group research website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Braunschweig, Holger 21st-century German chemists 1961 births Living people Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Academic staff of the University of Würzburg