German chemists nominated for European Patent Office (EPO) prize for solution to use CO₂ waste.

Chemists Christoph Gürtler (pictured left) and Walter Leitner have been nominated as finalists for the 2021 European Inventor Award in the "Industry" category, according to the EPO. This is to recognise their achievement in developing a process that uses carbon dioxide waste as a raw material for the production of foams and polymers. In the search for alternative carbon sources, the solution developed by Christoph Gürtler, Head of Catalysis Research at Covestro, and Walter Leitner, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion and Professor of Technical Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University, offers the possibility of reducing the amount of fossil raw materials required for a polyurethane precursor by 20 percent. At the same time, this also creates opportunities for using CO₂ waste from other industries. Announcing the finalists of the 2021 European Inventor Award, EPO President António Campinos justified the nomination of the two chemists by saying that they are taking a major step towards closing the carbon loop. "Their work has solved a decades-old problem and their success highlights the value of industry and academia working together to address key challenges facing humanity," Campinos said.