Professor Emeritus Hans-Joachim Freund, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin, Germany, celebrates his 70th birthday on March 4, 2021. Freund’s research interests include the physics and chemistry of solid surfaces, the structure and dynamics of oxide surfaces, model systems for heterogeneous catalysis, as well as nanostructures and clusters.
Hans-Joachim Freund was born on March 4, 1951, in Solingen, Germany. He studied chemistry and physics at the University of Cologne, Germany, where he received his Ph.D. in 1978 for work under the supervision of Georg Hohlneicher. From 1979 to 1981, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. Freund then returned to Cologne, where he completed his habilitation in 1983. He was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Erlangen, Germany, in 1983, and Professor for Physical Chemistry at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, in 1987. Starting in 1996, Freund served as Director and Scientific Member at the Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin, Germany. He has been involved in founding the Cluster of Excellence “Unifying Concepts in Catalysis” (UniCat), Berlin, Germany, and has also been a founding member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC).
Among many other honors, Freund has been awarded the ACS Award in Surface Chemistry from the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2019, the Bunsen Medal from the German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry (DBG) in 2015, the Karl Ziegler Award from the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh, German Chemical Society) and the Karl Ziegler Foundation in 2011, the Gabor A. Somorjai Award of the ACS for Creative Research in Catalysis in 2007, and the Leibniz Award from the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 1995. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the Institute of Physics (IOP), UK, and a Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Selected Publications
- Growth and Atomic-Scale Characterization of Ultrathin Silica and Germania Films: The Crucial Role of the Metal Support,
A. L. Lewandowski, S. Tosoni, L. Gura, Z. Yang, A. Fuhrich, M. J. Prieto, T. Schmidt, D. Usvyat, W.-D. Schneider, M. Heyde, G. Pacchioni, H.-J. Freund,
Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 27, 1870–1885.
https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202001806 - Surface Action Spectroscopy: A review and a Perspective on a New Technique to Study Vibrations at Surfaces,
Y. Liu, Z. Wu, H. Kuhlenbeck, H.-J. Freund,
Chem. Rec. 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1002/tcr.202000111 - Binding Behavior of Carbon monoxide to Gold Atoms on Ag(001),
D. Kuhness, J. Pal, H. J. Yang, N. Mammen, Ka. Honkala, H. Häkkinen, W.-D. Schneider, M. Heyde, H.-J. Freund,
Top. Catal. 2020, 63, 1578–1584.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11244-020-01290-3 - Lehrbuch der Physikalischen Chemie (in German),
G. Wedler, H.-J. Freund,
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2012.
ISBN 978-3-527-32909-0 - CO Oxidation as a Prototypical Reaction for Heterogeneous Processes,
H.-J. Freund, G. Meijer, M. Scheffler, R. Schlögl, M. Wolf,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 10064–10094.
https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201101378 - Oxide ultra-thin films on metals: new materials for the design of supported metal catalysts,
H.-J. Freund, G. Pacchioni,
Chem. Soc. Rev. 2008, 37, 2224.
https://doi.org/10.1039/b718768h - Photochemistry on Metal Nanoparticles,
K. Watanabe, D. Menzel, N. Nilius, H.-J. Freund,
Chem. Rev. 2006, 106, 4301–4320.
https://doi.org/10.1021/cr050167g
Also of Interest
- Bunsen Medal 2015,
ChemViews Mag. 2015.
Hans-Joachim Freund, Director of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin, Germany, honored by the Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft für physikalische Chemie e.V. (DBG, German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry) - Hajo Freund Receives Catalysis Award,
ChemViews Mag. 2015.
North American Catalysis Society and European Federation of Catalysis Societies honor advances in understanding catalysis - H.-J. Freund Receives Karl-Ziegler-Award,
ChemViews Mag. 2011.
Hans-Joachim Freund, Director of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Germany, has been awarded the Karl Ziegler Prize - Video: Hans-Joachim Freund zum Lehrbuch „Physikalische Chemie” im Interview (in German)
