Prof. Dr. Jürgen Caro, a Corresponding Member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities held a lecture about novel membranes at the 2025 World Laureates Forum in Shanghai on 25 October. Membranes of this kind are used in energy-efficient catalytic processes. Members of the academy’s Diffusion Commission played a relevant part in the publication of a technical report on the quantification of mass transfer in nanoporous materials which can be used in high-tech applications. And finally, a special edition of Diffusion Fundamentals marks its 20th anniversary.
Nobel Prize Laureate Forum with Prof. Dr. Jürgen Caro
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Caro took part in the 2025 World Laureates Forum (WLF) in Shanghai in October. The Professor Emeritus of Physical Chemistry at Leibniz University Hannover is a Corresponding Member of the academy and its commission Diffusion in Nature, Technology and Society. At the Forum, he gave a lecture on novel membranes which are used in energy-efficient gas separation and catalytic membrane reactors.
-
- Prof. Dr. Jürgen Caro presenting novel membranes at the World Laureates Forum in Shanghai in October.
The invitation was extended to him as a result of his groundbreaking work in material research for which he and his academy colleague Prof. Dr. Jörg Kärger were awarded the ENI Award in the Advanced Environmental Solutions category in 2020. Kärger presently chairs the academy’s Diffusion Commission. Both scientists received the award “for their work leading to the development of micro-imaging techniques for the in-situ observation of diffusive molecule flows in nanoporous materials”, as ENI declared in their press release at the time. The research has led to the development of new materials, such as the membranes presented by Caro at the WLF. The ENI award, which is endowed with 200,000 euros, is regarded as one of the most prestigious industrial science awards worldwide.
Following his presentation at the Forum, the state-run newspaper “People’s Daily” – the biggest in China – dedicated the front page and an extensive article of its 26 October edition to Jürgen Caro, his career path and his achievements. Caro was Kärger’s first Ph.D. student in Leipzig. The article has been viewed more than two million times.
IUPAC Report: scientific tools for industrial material design
Commissioned by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), an international team of 22 authors under Jörg Kärger’s lead produced a Technical Report “providing guidelines for measurements and reporting of diffusion properties of chemical compounds in nanoporous materials for catalytic, mass separation and other relevant purposes”. Among the authors are Corresponding Members of the academy who work in the context of the Diffusion Commission, namely professors Jürgen Caro, Marc-Olivier Coppens, and Randall Q. Snurr.
The aim of the report, which was published in November 2024, is to define mandatory standards of how to measure and document parameters of molecular substance transport in nanoporous materials. Such standards are indispensable for comparing measurement results when it comes to applying diffusion mechanisms for technical purposes, e.g. the development of environmentally friendly high-tech materials. Therefore, the report holds great value as a scientific compendium for the industry worldwide.
Preparatory papers for the report were published in two volumes of the Adsorption Journal ahead in 2021. They are now some of the most frequently cited works in the history of the journal, which is a leading medium for the diffusion and adsorption scientific community. “Six of the ten most cited papers of the total of 405 works published in the journal in the past five years have been produced within the framework of this initiative”, Jörg Kärger says. “This shows us that this knowledge is in high demand, which of course delights us very much”, he continues.
The International Adsorption Society offers additional resources to the report in the form of a webinar series live streamed on YouTube. Authors of the report present their research and directly answer the viewers’ questions. Jörg Kärger presented the whole initiative in his talk in February 2025. With more than 2,000 views, his webinar recording is the most sought after in the series so far.
Publication:
Diffusion in nanoporous materials with special consideration of the measurement of determining parameters (IUPAC Technical Report)
Pure and Applied Chemistry, vol. 97, no. 1, 2025, pp. 1-89 https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2023-1126 (AOP 20 Nov 2024)
Webinar series complementing the technical report
https://www.youtube.com/@InternationalAdsorptionSociety
Special edition of the Diffusion Fundamentals journal
The biannual international conference series Diffusion Fundamentals proved to be an excellent space for scientists of various disciplines to exchange ideas in the broad field of diffusion and spreading phenomena. Its 11th installment in July 2025 in Evanston marked the 20th anniversary of the conference series and was accompanied by a special issue of the associated peer-reviewed open access journal Diffusion Fundamentals. Over 1,000 articles have been published in the journal so far with more to come. Both the conference and the special edition were chaired and co-edited by Prof. Dr. Randall Q. Snurr of Northwestern University. In October, he was awarded a Humbold Research Award for his application-oriented research on nanoporous materials.