Renowned inorganic chemist Herbert W. Roesky, University of Göttingen, Germany, celebrates his 80th birthday on November 6, 2015.
His research covers a wide range of inorganic and organometallic chemistry, specifically fluorine chemistry, homogeneous catalysis, and the chemistry of main-group elements. Besides his research, Professor Roesky works on improving chemistry education and on promoting the fascination of chemistry to a wider audience.
Herbert Walter Roesky was born in Laukischken in East Prussia (today Saranskoe, Russia) in 1935. After an apprenticeship in a dairy, he studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen, Germany, where he received his Ph.D. in 1963 under the supervision of Oskar Glemser for work on fluorination reactions. After postdoctoral research at DuPont, Wilmington, DE, USA, and the completion of his habilitation in Göttingen, Roesky joined the University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1971 as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. In 1980, he returned to Göttingen as Director at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, where he remained until his retirement in 2004.
Among numerous other honors, Professor Roesky has received the Alfred Stock Memorial Award by the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh, German Chemical Society) in 1990, the Grand Prix de la Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie in 1998, the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 2004, the Blaise Pascal Medal by the European Academy of Sciences, Belgium, in 2015, and several honorary doctorates. He is a prolific author with over 1200 published articles and books.
Selected Publications
- A Stable Dimer of SiS2 Arranged between Two Carbene Molecules,
Chandrajeet Mohapatra, Kartik Chandra Mondal, Prinson P. Samuel, Helena Keil, Benedikt Niepötter, Regine Herbst-Irmer, Dietmar Stalke, Sayan Dutta, Debasis Koley, Herbert W. Roesky,
Chem. Eur. J. 2015, 21, 12572–12576.
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201502092 - An Aluminum Hydride That Functions like a Transition-Metal Catalyst,
Zhi Yang, Mingdong Zhong, Xiaoli Ma, Susmita De, Chakkittakandiyil Anusha, Pattiyil Parameswaran, Herbert W. Roesky,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 10225–10229.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201503304 - Free Radicals of N-Donor-Stabilized Silicon(II) Compounds Probed by Muon Spin Spectroscopy,
Kerim Samedov, Robert West, Paul W. Percival, Jean-Claude Brodovitch, Lalangi Chandrasena, Mina Mozafari, Reinhold Tacke, Konstantin Junold, Claudia Kobelt, Prinson P. Samuel, Ramachandran Azhakar, Kartik Chandra Mondal, Herbert W. Roesky, Matthias Driess, Wenyuan Wang,
Organometallics 2015, 34, 3532–3537.
DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.5b00324 - Efficient Preparation of Fluorine Compounds,
Herbert W. Roesky (Ed.),
John Wiley & Sons, New York, USA, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-118-07856-3 - Lewis Base Stabilized Dichlorosilylene,
Rajendra S. Ghadwal, Herbert W. Roesky, Sebastian Merkel, Julian Henn, Dietmar Stalke,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 5683–5686.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200901766 - Experiments in Green and Sustainable Chemistry,
Herbert W. Roesky, Dietmar Kennepohl, (Eds.)
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, 2009.
ISBN: 978-3-527-32546-7 - Mononuclear Aluminum Hydroxide for the Design of Well-Defined Homogeneous Catalysts,
Guangcai Bai, Sanjay Singh, Herbert W. Roesky, Mathias Noltemeyer, Hans-Georg Schmidt,
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 3449–3455.
DOI: 10.1021/ja043585w - Playing the Keyboard of Fluorine Chemistry,
Herbert W. Roesky,
Inorg. Chem. 1999, 38, 5934–5943.
DOI: 10.1021/ic990624+ - Chemical Curiosities: Spectacular Experiments and Inspired Quotes,
Herbert W. Roesky, Klaus Möckel,
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, 1996.
ISBN: 978-3-527-29414-5 - Triazatrimetallabenzenes, a New Class of Inorganic Heterocycles; Synthesis and Structure of [Cp*TaN(Cl)]3,
Herbert Plenio, Herbert W. Roesky, Mathias Noltemeyer, George M. Sheldrick,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1988, 27, 1330–1331.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.198813301
Also of Interest
- Author Profile: Herbert W. Roesky,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 9356–9357.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201302592 - Heinrich Roessler Award for H. W. Roesky,
ChemViews Mag. 2012.
Herbert Roesky has been awarded the Heinrich Roessler Prize of the GDCh for his outstanding contribution to teaching
