The Construction Chemistry Division of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) usually awards the Construction Chemistry Prize every two years as part of its division conference. The prize is awarded to the best Master's thesis and the best dissertation in the field of construction chemistry.

The Construction Chemistry Award is accompanied by an award certificate and prize money of 1000 euros for the Master's thesis and 3000 euros for the dissertation. The selection is made by a panel of experts with a simple majority of votes.

Deadline: 31 March 2026

Objective
As a rule, the GDCh Construction Chemistry Division awards a sponsorship prize for an outstanding master's thesis (or equivalent scientific work) and an excellent dissertation in the field of construction chemistry in even-numbered years.

The prize
The award includes a certificate and prize money donated by the specialist group in the amount of 1000 euros for the master's thesis and 3000 euros for the dissertation. The award ceremony will take place at the next Construction Chemistry specialist group conference. The persons honoured with the award will be invited to present the prize-winning work in a short lecture. The costs of attending the conference will be borne by the specialist group. The awarding of the prize is decided on by a prize committee appointed by the specialist group's executive committee.

Nomination
University lecturers or representatives from industry are eligible to nominate candidates. Self-nominations are possible in special cases. The submitted work should have been completed between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2026 (e.g. defence). The informal application, which should contain a brief justification for the proposal, should include the contact details of the proposed person (including email address), their CV and the scientific work itself.

Submission
Please send your proposals in electronic form and summarised in a PDF file to the GDCh office for the attention of Maike Fries.

The 2024 Construction Chemistry Award was presented to Dr Kathrin Otten and M.Sc. Simon Skibbe on the occasion of the 5th International Conference on the Chemistry of Construction Materials (ICCCM).

Dr Kathrin Otten: "[...] in recognition of her outstanding dissertation entitled "Investigation of water transport mechanisms in hydrophobic mineral building materials", which was completed in the working group of Professor Dr Klaus Littmann at Leibniz University Hannover. Otten describes in her dissertation the use of hydrophobic additives in different concentrations and the resulting influences on water transport in mineral building materials - a topic with great scientific and practical relevance for construction chemistry. The prizewinner is dedicated to the relevant publications on the use of organosilicon compounds for the hydrophobisation of building materials. From this, she has developed a deep understanding of water transport mechanisms and laid the basis for a new test procedure. She has succeeded in transferring her findings on the influence of hydrophobised pore spaces to generally applicable model systems. These accurately describe the phenomena of water transport in the gas and liquid phase and close gaps in assumptions from earlier publications.
The work culminates in a very successful systematic overview that can be transferred to various practical construction scenarios."

Simon Skibbe: "[...] in recognition of his outstanding master's thesis entitled "Investigation of the effects of functional molecules on the carbonation of calcium hydroxide", which was completed in the working group of Professor Dr Torben Gädt at the Technical University of Munich. In his thesis, Mr Skibbe describes the investigation of the effects of functional molecules on the carbonation of calcium hydroxide in a very structured approach. The form and the linguistic realisation of the work are very well elaborated and the weighting of the individual components is chosen in a target-oriented manner. Mr Skibbe uses various measurement methods, which are evaluated in a targeted manner, compared with each other and placed in a broader context. The results obtained are critically reflected upon and a detailed outlook for possible subsequent investigations is presented. The work provides added value for the basic understanding and simple analytical implementation of common additives on the carbonation process."

The Construction Chemistry Award 2022 was presented on the occasion of the 4th International Conference on the Chemistry of Construction Materials (ICCCM) to Dr Elisabeth John and M.Sc. Serena Mingione .

Dr Elisabeth John: "[...] in recognition of her outstanding dissertation entitled "The Effect of Artificial Calcium Silicate Hydrate on Cement Hydration", which she completed in Professor Dietmar Stephan's working group at the Technical University of Berlin. In her dissertation, the prizewinner deals with the production and characterisation of C-S-H phases. She succeeds extraordinarily well in covering the range of fundamental research topics in cement hydration and the optimisation of C-S-H syntheses. In a very comprehensive overview article, Dr John deals with the relevant historical and current work in the field of C-S-H nucleation. Her resulting synthetic and analytical work makes a significant contribution to clarifying the influence of calcium-silicate ratios on cement hydration. The development of a new IR method is an essential part of this scientific work and opens up the possibility of monitoring silicate formation in-situ for the first time. Finally, the prizewinner demonstrates the relevance of her work for use in practice by means of a comprehensive study on factors influencing C-S-H production. In it, she proves that both efficiency and energy input can be improved through optimised reaction control."

Serena Mingione: "[...] to recognize her outstanding master thesis conducted at the University of Naples Federico II in collaboration with the EMPA - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, entitled "Investigation on the reactivity of slag as supplementary cementitious material". Ms. Mingione presented an approach to improve the CO2 balance of cements by investigating the potential use of slags and its limitation by minor elements (Zn, Mg, and Sr). The thesis evaluated the influence of industrial slags on the structure, reactivity, and hydration behaviour of cements. The model system used was based on calcium aluminosilicate glasses serving as fundamental validation of the presence of various oxide compounds. All experiments were carefully considered and purposefully performed. The analytical methods allowed a precise characterisation of the model system. Application-oriented mortar tests rounded off the work. Ms. Mingione's work came to the conclusion that divalent ions influence the formation of non-bridging oxides which results in a less interconnected network of the glasses and a more reactive material. Thus, it represents an added value for further investigations on the way to a CO2-neutral future of the construction industry."

The 2020 Construction Chemistry Award was presented on the occasion of the 3rd International Conference on the Chemistry of Construction Materials (ICCCM) to Dr Elsa Qoku and M.Sc. Christopher Schiefer .

Dr. Elsa Qoku: In recognition of her dissertation entitled "Characterisation and quantification of crystalline and amporphous phase assemblage in ternary binders during hydration". The central concern of the work is the deepening of the hydration mechanisms of ternary binders with special consideration of the role of X-ray amorphous phases. This work thus addresses a current research topic in construction chemistry. It impresses with a strong methodological investigation that strictly follows the structure of the dissertation - chemical reaction - analysis - modelling. Ms Qoku deals with very complex issues clearly, concisely and very comprehensibly. An excellent overview of the international literature as well as a very good reference to it in the evaluation characterise this work. A particular strength of the work is the methodological comparison between QXRD, NMR, TGA and stoichiometric calculations. The model concepts further developed by Ms Qoku on the basis of her experimental results, flanked by thermodynamic modelling, are novel for the hydration of alumina cement-rich binders. Overall, this dissertation considerably expands our knowledge of the temporal development of hydrate phases in complex ternary systems. Therefore, the dissertation presented represents a scientifically outstanding achievement.

Christopher Schiefer: In recognition of his master's thesis entitled "Mg-Al-LDH-PCE nanocomposites as hydration accelerators for cement".Mr Schiefer's master's thesis is dedicated to the synthesis, analysis and application of layered double hydroxides (LDH) nanocomposites as hydration accelerators for cements such as Portland cement and calcium aluminate cement. With this topic, Mr Schiefer is addressing an important area of current chemical research in construction chemistry. Recognising the fundamental relationships between the acceleration of cement hydration is an essential key to increasing the performance of cements and thus to reducing the CO2 emissions of cements, concrete, mortar and plasters. The comprehensive presentation of the literature is impressive, the derivation of the task is precise and logical. The synthesis experiments are very well thought out and skilfully carried out. The analytical methods are unerringly selected and comprehensive, the application-oriented tests in the mortar round off the experimental work. The entire work is also very successful in its form and design as well as the presentations. All in all, Mr Schiefer presents an extremely productive and worthy master's thesis.

Dr Ellina Bernhard, Empa, Dübendorf (Switzerland) received the 2018 sponsorship award in recognition of her dissertation on the topic:

"Magnesium silicate hydrate (M-S-H) characterisation: temperature, calcium, aluminium and alkali"

The focus of the work is on magnesium silicate hydrate, its formation and interaction with calcium, aluminium and alkali ions. In her dissertation, Ms Bernard compiles missing thermo-dynamic data for M-S-H structures. These form a broad basis for the modelling of M-S-H structures for the first time. The work is very well structured, the systematics are impressively good. The comprehensive analysis is impressive, methodically harmonised and perfectly complementary. The detailed interpretation remains focussed and is accompanied by very well structured summaries and very good "main findings". The chemistry of magnesium silicate hydrate structures is rather limited to special applications and fields of use. However, this work represents an outstanding scientific achievement and it can be expected that the knowledge gained here will also have an impact on construction chemistry. A major contribution to understanding the M-S-H system was made here.


Dr Henning-Felix von Daake, Technische Universität Berlin, received the 2018 sponsorship award in recognition of his dissertation on the topic:

"Possibilities for optimising the mode of action of construction chemical admixtures through mechanisms of controlled drug release"

The work addresses the problem of the temporal development of active ingredient concentrations. This is often not adapted to the prevailing conditions and the application is therefore not effective. Mr von Daake tackles this problem by means of encapsulation and controlled release. Despite the extensive utilisation of results, the work is written as a monograph. The work is to be regarded as highly innovative because it was consistently designed and carried out on an interdisciplinary basis. It should be particularly emphasised that Mr von Daake had to use a number of methods (encapsulation, release) to solve the problem, for which he, as a trained civil engineer, lacked both the theoretical and practical foundations. However, he mastered this with flying colours. Overall, he succeeded in transferring an original approach from other disciplines to solve a common practical construction problem. An outstanding achievement with clear practical relevance.

The award ceremony took place as part of the Construction Chemistry Conference on 1 October 2019 in Aachen