Professor Caro at the World Laureates Forum in Shanghai

As the sole representative from Germany, our former colleague and institute director Prof. Jürgen Caro was invited to the World Laureates Forum (WLF) in Shanghai on October 25 and 26. In his presentation on the topic of advanced materials for chemical engineering, Prof. Caro spoke about “New membranes for energy-efficient gas separation and in catalytic membrane reactors for process intensification.” Professor Caro acted as an ambassador for LUH and mentioned, among other things, that the 2007 Nobel Prize winner for catalysis, Gerhard Ertl, had his scientific roots in physical chemistry at LUH. Prof. Epping, the president of LUH, also thanked him for this.

Prof. Caro owes his invitation to the WLF to the ENI Award for Advanced Environmental Solutions, which he received in 2020 together with his doctoral supervisor J. Kärger from the University of Leipzig. With prize money of €200,000, the ENI Award is one of the most prestigious awards in industrial chemistry.

On the sidelines of the WLF, Prof. Caro gave several interviews to Chinese newspapers. In an interview with Peoples Today, he spoke about his turbulent life:

• Collapse of the GDR, closure of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR as his employer, and subsequent unemployment.
• New start as a start-up company for the synthesis of zeolitic adsorbents and catalysts, which unfortunately went bankrupt.
• Reestablishment of the Institute for Applied Chemistry, which, however, was not financially viable and resulted in renewed unemployment.
• Then another new institute was founded, this time the Institute of Applied Catalysis, but it was not wanted in Berlin and therefore had to move to Rostock.
• Finally, Prof. Caro found a new permanent scientific home for 20 years at LUH, which enabled Prof. Caro to continue his teaching and research, for which he is very grateful. 

The interview was published on October 26 on the front page of the Sunday edition of Peoples Today and has had 2 million reads so far, which is a record result even for China.