Institute of Inorganic Chemistry
Staff

Prof. Dr. Heinz Berke

Universität Zürich
Anorganisch-chemisches Institut
Winterthurerstrasse 190
CH-8057 Zürich

       Office   34-H-50
Tel: +41 1 63 546 81
Fax: +41 1 63 568 02
E-Mail: hberke@aci.uzh.ch

Heinz Berke received his Diploma in chemistry at the Universiy of Erlangen in 1971 and his Ph.D. from the University of Tübingen in 1974. Apart from a short stay in the laboratory of R. Hoffmann at Cornell University 1977, he was at the University of Konstanz from 1974-1988. He finished his habilitation in 1981, and in 1983 was awarded the Heisenberg Fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft and the Dozentenpreis of the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie . He was promoted to professor at the University of Konstanz in 1987, before joining the University of Zürich in 1988.
H. Berke's research activities cover various fields of organometallic chemistry. Major efforts are devoted to the area of transition metal hydrides, which is related to homogenous catalysis as well as to biology. A tuning of the metal-hydrogen bond strength and bond polarity is expected to lead to activated and reactive compounds. Also under study is organometallic chemistry useful for enantioselective C,C coupling reactions mediated by transition-metal complexes, as well as metallacumulenes, where carbon based units are sought to bridge transition-metal centers.

H. Berke’s research activities cover various fields of organometallic chemistry. Major efforts are devoted to the area of transition metal hydrides and transition metal hydrogen chemistry, which is related to homogenous catalysis and to hydrogen storage. Also under study is organometallic chemistry useful for enantioselective C.C coupling reactions mediated by transition-metal complexes, as well as metallacumulenes, where carbon based units are sought to bridge transition-metal centers for use as electronic devices. In addition research is carried out on archaeometry of ancient blue pigments.