The specialist group Phosphorus Chemistry was founded in 2019 and currently has around 250 members. It bundles the activities in the field of phosphorus chemistry that are strongly represented in Germany and Europe and makes them visible. Although not directly anchored in its name, the chemistry of the heavy homologues of phosphorus has played an important role from the very beginning and is always taken into account.
Phosphorus chemistry is closely linked to chemical research in Germany in many respects. The element was discovered in Hamburg in 1669 by Hennig Brand, a German pharmacist and alchemist who actually wanted to find the philosopher's stone. After being demystified as the "Mitscherlich sample" (by Eilhard Mitscherlich, 1794-1863), the phosphorus chemiluminescence that occurred during the discovery found its way into forensic chemistry and thus established an important branch of the systematic investigation of criminal offences.
Phosphorus is also known for its variety of allotropes, of which white, red, black and violet phosphorus in particular have long been recognised. White phosphorus (P4) is the modification that represents the product of large-scale industrial production. The high reactivity and molecular structure of P4 are highly valued in research; phosphorus-rich molecular compounds can be created through functionalisation. There are many different relationships between phosphorus and its heavy homologues: Arsenic, antimony and bismuth, which are becoming increasingly important in the field of materials science and catalysis. The specialist group is therefore also focussing on the chemistry of the heavy elements of group 15.
Phosphorus compounds are essential for all biological organisms as they are a component of elementary biomolecules and are responsible for fundamental cellular mechanisms in the form of nucleotides, secondary messengers and in phosphorylations as post-translational modifications of proteins. Phosphorus compounds are also important building blocks in molecular probes in chemical biology and in modern pharmaceuticals and are therefore central to medicinal chemistry. The hepatitis C drug sofosbovir, which is based on the development of a nucleotide analogue and thus a phosphorus(V) compound, is a good example of this.It is impossible to imagine inorganic and organic synthetic chemistry without phosphorus compounds, be it in the Wittig reaction, the Staudinger reaction, the Arbusov and Michaelis-Arbusov reaction, the Mitsunobu reaction or the Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction, as organocatalysts or as multifunctional phosphane ligands, also in the form of chiral ligands in metal complex catalysts. Phosphorus is also an important element in the field of solid-state chemistry and in materials science, e.g. in light-emitting diodes, in steels, but also for matches. Phosphorene (a relative of graphene) is an interesting new two-dimensional material that has gained increasing interest in recent years, including among German phosphorus chemists. And last but not least, phosphorus compounds play an important role in the chemical industry, e.g. as desiccants (e.g. phosphorus (V) oxide), in flame retardants, additives, plasticisers and pesticides or as phosphate in fertilisers.
Shortlink to this page: www.gdch.de/phosphorchemie
20 March 2026
Dresden
More info coming soon