Professor Walter Leitner, Institute for Technical Chemistry and Macromolecular Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University, has been awarded the Wöhler Prize by the German Chemical Society for his innovative contribution to the development of sustainable chemical processes. 

Professor Leitner is best known for his work on organometallic catalysis, especially in combination with non-conventional reaction media such as supercritical CO2, ionic liquids or PEG. In particular, his group has developed continuous-flow processes on the basis of molecular catalysts immobilized in multiphase systems based on such "Green Solvents". These concepts are based on a fundamental approach towards the understanding of interactions between catalysts and reaction media including the transfer of chirality in asymmetric catalysis using chiral solvents. His main research interest is to develop chemical processes which are safer, cleaner and more energy efficient. 

Professor Leitner, was born in 1963. He studied chemistry before completing his doctorate at the University of Regensburg, to which he returned after a one-year postdoctoral stay at the University of Oxford as a Liebig-Fellow. In 1991, he joined the newly formed Working Group "CO2 chemistry" of the Max Planck Society at the University of Jena, where he obtained his "Habilitation" in 1995. After nearly seven years in senior positions at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mülheim an der Ruhr, he accepted an appointment to the Chair of Technical Chemistry and Petrochemistry of the RWTH Aachen in 2002. Since 2007, he is also scientific director of the Catalytic Center CAT, a joint research centre of RWTH Aachen and the Bayer company. In addition to activities on the board of the German Society for Catalysis (GeCATS) and the Sustainable Chemistry Section of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), he is also the scientific editor of Green Chemistry. 

RSC Publishing and the Green Chemistry Editorial Team extends its warm congratulations to Professor Leitner for this fantastic achievement. 

Kathleen Too