The Cluster of Excellence RESOLV (Ruhr Explores Solvation) has put a focus on the solvent and established a new research discipline in chemistry. The consortium, which is based at Ruhr University Bochum and TU Dortmund University, will enter its third funding period in 2026; it already exists since 2012. The Bochum-Dortmund team is going to continue its successful interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen and the three Max Planck Institutes for Coal Research, Chemical Energy Conversion, and Sustainable Materials.
While biological and chemical reactions typically take place in a solvent, solvents have traditionally been considered a mere bystander in the process. The RESOLV team has shown that the role of the solvent has been underestimated, as it actively takes part in chemical reactions. The upcoming seven-year funding period is intended to gain an even better understanding and ability to regulate solvent-controlled processes.
“We want to tackle new research challenges: With ‘quantum solvation’, we intend to focus, both experimentally and theoretically, on quantum effects in reactions including solvent processes. This would constitute a milestone in chemical research,” says Professor Martina Havenith, spokesperson of the RESOLV Cluster of Excellence.
In the third funding period, the researchers will visualize the role of the solvent at the molecular level with the aim of tailoring solvents specifically for different processes to ensure that they support the chemical reaction in the best possible way. “The research should help to overcome pressing societal challenges, such as the direct use of electricity from sustainable energy sources to synthesize chemicals and ultimately replace fossil carbon sources with sustainable carbon sources,” states RESOLV co-speaker Professor Viktoria Däschlein-Gessner from Ruhr University Bochum. To this end, the RESOLV consortium will develop new synthesis, spectroscopic, microscopic, and simulation methods.
Furthermore, the team is now also focusing on the development and tuning of solvents for product design. To date, over 80 percent of the costly and time-consuming active ingredients developed in the pharmaceutical industry have never been used because they aren’t sufficiently water-soluble, are, therefore, not bioavailable and will never reach a patient. RESOLV aims to overcome this limitation in the future.
To tackle these challenges, RESOLV will set up new experiments and closely integrate state-of-the-art experiments with theoretical models and methods of artificial intelligence and laboratory automation. “We want to identify the perfect solvent beyond trial and error, maximize the efficiency of chemical reactions, make new active ingredients available for use and minimize the ecological footprint at the same time,” points out RESOLV co-speaker Professor Gabriele Sadowski from TU Dortmund University. The RESOLV team is planning to set up a new type of transfer laboratory for AI-assisted chemistry together with stakeholders from the industry to turn invention into innovation.
RESOLV
