In honor of Prof. Gerhard Ertl, Chemistry Nobel Prize laureate in 2007, the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society and the three Berlin universities (FU, HU and TU Berlin) annually bestow the Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award. This year, Dutch chemist Prof. Marc Koper from the University of Leiden is being honored for his achievements in the fields of electrochemistry and catalysis, which have been and are crucial in advancing the transition to sustainable energy technologies and green chemistry.
Prof. Koper is a pioneer in the field of electrochemistry, the branch of chemistry that leverages electricity to produce or break down chemical compounds. He is researching how electrochemical redox reactions can be controlled and catalyzed for sustainable energy and chemistry. As world-leading researchers in the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons, he and his team developed theoretical models for the formation of hydrocarbons on copper surfaces, thereby explaining copper’s pivotal role as a catalyst. His team has a strong expertise in microscopy and spectroscopy and combines sophisticated experimental methods, theory, and the principles of catalyst design. This approach enables them to gain detailed insights into the reactions at the interface of electrode and electrolyte and how catalysts enhance them. Their theoretical considerations help, for example, to understand and predict the activity and selectivity of electrode surfaces. In simpler words, this research reveals how one can achieve optimal yield of a specific chemical product while keeping the energetic costs at bay. Electrochemistry and catalysis hence play a central role in the development and scaling of technologies for harnessing renewable energy, as well as in the transition to a resource-efficient chemistry. Koper’s basic research provides crucial insights in this context.
Prof. Koper has been active in electrochemistry since his university studies. He earned his PhD in 1994 under Prof. Jan H. Sluyters at Utrecht University, with a dissertation on instability, oscillations, and chaos in electrochemical reactions. He then pursued postdoctoral research with Prof. Wolfgang Schmickler at the University of Ulm, followed by work with Prof. Rutger van Santen at Eindhoven University of Technology starting in 1997. In 2002, he became an assistant professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, before being appointed professor of surface chemistry and catalysis at Leiden University in 2005.
Koper’s research has received numerous honors, including the 2021 Spinoza Prize, the Netherlands’ highest scientific honor. He has served as president of the International Society of Electrochemistry and is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Established in 2008 by the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society and Berlin’s three universities (Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), the annual Ertl Lecture Award honors outstanding catalysis researchers in tribute to former FHI director Gerhard Ertl’s 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award is decided by a commission comprising Berlin university members, namely Joachim Sauer (Humboldt Universität), Matthias Drieß (Technische Universität), and Eckart Rühl (Freie Universität) together with the directors of the Fritz Haber Institute. Gerhard Ertl advises the commission on the selection. Awardees visit the FHI to deliver a keynote lecture.
Commemorating the anniversary of Gerhard Ertl’s Nobel Prize, the award ceremony, as well as the award lecture and reception, are scheduled for December 10, 2026.