2016 WACKER Silicone Award presented to Prof. Alexander Filippou

Alexander Filippou, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Bonn, Germany, received the 2016 WACKER Silicone Award. The award was presented during the eighth European Silicon Days in Poznań, Poland.

The Munich-based chemical group recognizes Filippou’s groundbreaking work in the field of organosilicon chemistry. This includes isolation of a transition metal complex with a metal-silicon triple bond and synthesis of a stable silanone with a silicon-oxygen double bond. Prof. Filippou’s work is also important to industry, for example for developing catalysts or silicones with novel combinations of properties. The WACKER Silicone Award, which includes €10,000 prize money, ranks alongside the American Chemical Society’s Kipping Award as the most important international accolade in organosilicon chemistry.

As part of the eighth European Silicon Days in Poznań (Poland), Prof. Alexander Filippou (center), Director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Bonn, was distinguished with the WACKER Silicone Award 2016. He is shown here being congratulated by WACKER Executive Board member Auguste Willems (right) and WACKER SILICONES President Dr. Robert Gnann.

In his speech, Robert Gnann, head of the WACKER SILICONES business division, praised Mr. Filippou as a researcher, who, with his achievements, has had a lasting influence on silicon chemistry. Prof. Filippou’s research focuses include triple bonds between transition metals and elements of the carbon group, as well as stable molecules of the elements silicon, germanium, tin and lead in their low oxidation states. Among his groundbreaking achievements were the isolation of a transition metal complex with a metal-silicon triple bond and thus of a silicon analog of a transition metal alkylidene complex (2010) and the synthesis of a stable silanone with a silicon-oxygen double bond (2014) and of a phosphasilenylidene with a silicon-phosphorus double bond (2015).

For years, the Munich-based chemical company has been promoting basic research at universities and institutes. An important pillar of this is the WACKER Institute of Silicon Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich. The company founded the institute in 2006 as an interface between academic and industrial research.

With the WACKER Silicone Award, the chemical company has recognized outstanding achievements in the field of organosilicon chemistry for almost three decades.