Great Honor: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2022 for Stefanie Dehnen

Stefanie Dehnen was awarded with the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2022. She receives the Leibniz Prize for her outstanding contributions to the synthesis of novel metal and semimetal clusters and their application to energy storage and transfer. Her chemical work is based on a special synthesis concept that allows access to a variety of novel compounds and materials. For example, she uses binary aggregates of main group elements, which are then extended by at least one component - further atoms or organic groups. In this way, Stefanie Dehnen has succeeded in creating very uncommon compounds with novel structures, among them solid ion conductors with the best conductive properties known to date. Her research does not fit into any conventional scheme: the decisive factor in "Dehnen chemistry" is the transdisciplinary approach, in particular the combination of inorganic and organic chemistry, coordination chemistry and modern quantumchemical computations. The results of their research have found their way into chemistry textbooks, and their synthesis approach is now used worldwide.