Materials Chemistry

Biography

Professor Michael Tausch, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany, has been awarded the inaugural Heinz Schmidkunz Prize by the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCH, German Chemical Society). The award recognizes outstanding contributions to research into the teaching of chemistry, teacher training, and the development of material for teaching chemistry in schools. It was presented at the GDCh Wissenschaftsforum 2015 in Dresden, Germany, on August 31, 2015. Among other honors, Professor Tausch has received the Friedrich-Stromeyer Preis of the GDCh in 1994 and the Johann-Joachim Becher-Preis of the J. J. Becher-Gesellschaft in 2007.

Research Interest

Professor Tausch's work includes photochemistry in science education, curriculum innovation, and the development of didactic materials on silicones and cyclodextrins. Recently developed experimental kits and teaching materials refer to Photoprocesses in Science Education, Photo-SciEd, especially to: photo-, chemo- and electroluminescence, photogalvanic and photovoltaic cells, photoisomerisation and photocatalytic redox reactions. Experimental approaches to the elementary key steps occurring at molecular level are investigated and transcribed into printed and electronic teaching materials suitable for the communication of Photo-SciEd in close combination with convincing applications from technology and nature, such as: generation of light in energy saving devices (LEDs, OLEDs, fluorescence micro- and nanoscopy etc.), supply of electric energy from sunlight (photogalvanic cells, inorganic, organic and hybrid photovoltaic, fluorescence collectors etc.), sun light conversion and storage in long living chemical systems (the “sustainocene age” behind the capture and conversion of CO2”), thin layer photoreactors in living systems (in green leaves, human eyes, human skin etc.), the “photoreactor atmosphere” as a precondition for life on the planet Earth (stratospheric and tropospheric photochemistry), thin layer smart materials with molecular switches (photochromic and photoluminscent isomers in solid matrices).