This year's Carl Zerbe Prize for young scientists has been announced: Dr.-Ing. Patrick Schühle has been nominated for the award by the DGMK board.
Dr. Schühle takes an innovative approach to his research, combining fundamental catalysis research with application-oriented reactor and process engineering. He earned his Ph.D. with honors in 2021 for his work on CO2-Hydrogenation to methanol at Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he has led a research group in the field of „Catalytic Systems for Chemical Energy Storage“ since 2021. He has been the director of an independent early-career research group funded by the Federal Ministry of BMFTR since 2024. In this group, he is developing an alternative process for producing hydrogen from biomass via the intermediate form formic acid. In addition, Mr. Schühle has served as department head at the Institute for a Sustainable Hydrogen Economy (IHE) at Forschungszentrum Jülich since May 2026.
His academic visibility has grown significantly in recent years. Since 2020, Mr. Schühle has published over 30 papers in high-impact journals, 19 of which he authored as the first or corresponding author.
The award ceremony for the prize, which is endowed with 5,000 euros, will take place at the DGMK/ÖGEW/SCI Conference—"Processes for a Resilient Supply of Carbon Carriers, Fuels, and Chemicals" will take place on October 8, 2026, in Essen.
