ChemistryViews

Liu Leo Liu, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzen, China, has received the 2026 EurJIC–Wöhler Young Investigator Prize. The award is offered by the Wöhler Association for Inorganic Chemistry of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) and the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry (EurJIC). It recognizes outstanding publications in inorganic chemistry by an early-career scientist.

Peter Wasserscheid, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, has been awarded the Archimedes Science Award by TUD Dresden University of Technology, the DRESDEN-concept Science and Innovation Alliance (DDc), and the Free State of Saxony, Germany. The award was presented in Dresden, Germany, on September 9, 2026, as part of this year’s “Building Bridges” conference. The award is endowed with 50,000 euros.

Batteries & Supercaps has published a Special Collection highlighting advances in zinc-based energy storage and the importance of zinc for next-generation batteries. The collection brings together research covering Zn-ion and Zn-air batteries, aqueous batteries, electrolytes, interfacial engineering, and related developments in zinc-based energy storage. Together, these contributions explore how researchers are unlocking the potential of zinc for next-generation battery technologies.

The harbor facility in the picture is now used for small sailing ships and motorboats. In the past, however, almost all material was carried by barges. They were used both to transport raw materials and deliver finished products to weaving mills and textile factories around the Lake of Zurich region. Which company was located here? And which chemical was shipped? Follow this link to see the correct answer.

Professor Helma Wennemers of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, was awarded the Emil Fischer Medal by the German Chemical Society (GDCh) on September 7, 2026, in recognition of her research on synthetic peptides. She received the award during the 24th ORCHEM conference at the University of Freiburg, Germany, one of the leading meetings in the field of organic chemistry. Helma Wennemers is honored for her pioneering work on synthetic peptides.

Blue pigments have always been a specialty of chemists. These pigments were synthetically produced and in copious quantities as early as 2500 BC. For example, the frieze of the Parthenon temple (Acropolis) in Athens, Greece, measures 160 meters and was entirely painted with Egyptian Blue (CaCuSiO₄). The approximately 8,000 terracotta warriors unearthed in Xi’an, China, were originally clad in blue trousers or blue coats colored with Chinese Purple (BaCuSi₂O₆).

Researchers have transformed a conventional agarose hydrogel into a self-healing, impact-absorbing material by employing a biopolymer backbone and supramolecular self-assembly. The biodegradable hydrogel rapidly repairs itself after damage, dissipates mechanical energy, and protects fragile objects from compression and impact, offering a promising strategy for sustainable protective materials.

Yasuhiro Igarashi, Japan, and colleagues have isolated and structurally characterized rhodopyran, a previously unknown bicyclic natural product, from Rhodococcus sp. strain RD066637. The compound is a carboxylated hexahydrocyclopenta[b]pyran, a notably uncommon natural-product scaffold. The team cultured the Rhodococcus strain, extracted the broth with 1-BuOH, followed by silica-gel chromatography and preparative HPLC, obtaining 22.7 mg from 2 L culture.

In a collaboration between the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and the University of Pisa (Italy), Paul van den Tempel and co-workers explored the possibility of monitoring cross-linking density in typical self-healing materials. Self-healing plastics, a popular topic among materials scientists, can extend the service life of products and delay critical failure. In particular, intrinsic self-healing behavior can be achieved through carefully designed polymer architectures.

The chemist are looking for this time was born in a town that today belongs to Croatia, studied in Switzerland, and spent most of their scientific career there. Early in their career, our chemist became fascinated by substances responsible for the scents of plants and animals. Their research revealed that surprisingly large carbon rings can be stable, overturning prevailing ideas about molecular structure.