PhD Award
- funded by the Walter Kölle Foundation -
The Society of Water Chemistry of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) has generally awarded the Water Chemistry PhD Award once a year since 1992. The award recognises outstanding doctoral theses that have made important contributions to the advancement of a water chemistry topic and have been awarded an overall grade of very good or better. The award consists of a certificate and prize money of 1,500 euros provided by the Walter Kölle Foundation. The award ceremony traditionally takes place as part of the WATER annual conference of the Society of Water Chemistry. The award is decided by a prize committee appointed by the Division Board.
Submission deadline: 31 October 2026
Objective
The Water Chemistry Division of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) awards the PhD Award in Water Chemistry – funded by the Walter Kölle Foundation once a year in recognition of an outstanding doctoral thesis that makes an important contribution to the further development of a water chemistry topic.
The award
The award includes a certificate and prize money of 1500 euros provided by the Walter Kölle Foundation. The award will be presented at the annual WASSER 2027 Conference. The awardee will be invited to present the award-winning work in a scientific lecture as part of the Conference. The Division will cover the costs of attending the Conference. The award is decided by an award committee appointed by the Division Board.
Nomination
Nominations are generally submitted by the academic supervisor; self-nominations are expressly excluded. The doctorate was completed after 1 November 2024 and before 31 October 2026 (date of examination). The dissertation was awarded an overall grade of very good or higher. All nominations must include the following documents:
Submission
Please send your proposal by email and summarised in a single PDF file to the GDCh Office, for the attention of Maike Fries.
The PhD Award was presented to Dr. Finnian Freeling on 11 May 2026 on the occasion of WASSER 2026 in Kiel "in recognition of his outstanding dissertation entitled “Transformation Products of Micropollutants in the Aquatic Environment: Highly Prevalent but Commonly Overlooked”, completed at the DVGW Water Technology Centre (TZW) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Thomas Ternes at the University of Koblenz. One of the greatest gaps in knowledge in the field of anthropogenic trace substances and their holistic assessment concerns understanding the formation of transformation products that cause adverse (eco)toxicological effects. In his dissertation, Mr Freeling addressed this problem and used three prominent examples – trifluoroacetate, sulfamate and pantoprazole – to investigate the occurrence, formation and fate of persistent transformation products. Dr Freeling mastered the broad subject of his work exceptionally well and tackled the scientific questions with a very high level of expertise, creativity and the use of complex analytical methods, resulting in scientific publications in high-ranking journals. His findings represent an innovative approach to assessing anthropogenic trace substances. The dissertation is therefore an important contribution to protecting and preserving our environment and health.
The PhD Award in water chemistry was presented on 26 May 2025 at WASSER 2025 in Münster to Dr. Jonathan Zweigle: "in recognition of his outstanding doctoral thesis, completed in the working group of Prof. Dr. Christian Zwiener at the University of Tübingen, entitled „Characterization and Identification of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in the Environment and Consumer Products via High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Oxidative Conversion“. In his doctoral thesis, Dr. Zweigle made significant advances in the development of analytical screening methods using high-resolution mass spectrometry and in the identification of PFAS in products and environmental samples. The approaches developed by Dr. Zweigle were implemented in the open-source tool „PF∆Screen“, which provides the scientific community with a PFAS-optimised workflow for analysing HRMS data. Dr. Zweigle also successfully further developed the PFAS sum parameter TOP assay in PhotoTOP, thereby not only overcoming the problems of the TOP assay but also characterising fluorinated side-chain polymers in solid samples."
| Year | Awardee, location* | Place of award ceremony |
| 2026 | Dr. Finnian Freeling, Koblenz | Kiel |
| 2025 | Dr. Jonathan Zweigle, Tübingen | Münster |
| 2024 | Dr. Lotta Hohrenk-Danzouma, Essen | Limburg a.d. Lahn |
| 2024 | Dr. Joanna Maria Houska, Lausanne/CH | Limburg a.d. Lahn |
| 2023 | Dr. Christian Schwaferts, München | Augsburg |
| 2022 | Dr. Elisabeth von der Esch-Letica, München | Online |
| 2022 | Dr. Alexander Weizel, Koblenz | Online |
| 2021 | Dr. Peter Carl, Berlin | Online |
| 2021 | Dr. Gerrit Renner, Essen | Online |
| 2020 | Dr. Fabian Fischer, Leipzig (award ceremony: 2021) | Online |
| 2019 | Dr. Tobias Bader, Langenau | Erfurt |
| 2019 | Dr. Jens Müller, Rostock | Erfurt |
| 2018 | Dr. Stefan Bieber, München | Papenburg |
| 2018 | Dr. Kevin Jewell, Koblenz | Papenburg |
| 2017 | Dr. Allan Philippe, Landau | Donaueschingen |
| 2016 | Dr. Thorsten Hüffer, Wien/AT | Bamberg |
| 2015 | Dr. Holger Lutze, Essen | Schwerin |
| 2015 | Dr. Aki Sebastian Ruhl, Berlin | Schwerin |
| 2014 | Dr. Elisabeth Neubauer, Wien/AT | Haltern am See |
| 2013 | Dr. Carsten Prasse, Koblenz | Goslar |
| 2013 | Dr. Marco Scheurer, Karlsruhe | Goslar |
| 2012 | Dr. Arne Wick, Koblenz | Neu-Ulm |
| 2011 | Dr. Manuela Peschka, Hamburg | Norderney |
| 2011 | Dr. Alexander Sperlich, Berlin | Norderney |
| 2010 | Dr. Markus Florian Bauer, Bayreuth | Bayreuth |
| 2009 | Dr. Satoshi Endo, Duisburg | Stralsund |
| 2008 | Dr. Stefan Weiß, Wien/AT | Trier |
| 2007 | ./. | Passau |
| 2006 | Dr. Anja These, Berlin | Celle |
| 2006 | Tobias Wagner, Karlsruhe | Celle |
| 2005 | Dr. Margit Müller, Karlsruhe | Bad Mergentheim |
| 2004 | Dr. Till Merkel, Ulm | Bad Saarow |
| 2003 | Dr. Monique Bissen, Karlsruhe | Stade |
| 2002 | Dr. Roland Schick, Berlin | Eichstätt |
| 2002 | Dr. Rudi Winzenbacher, Berlin | Eichstätt |
| 2001 | Dr. Martin Seifert, München | Bad Wildungen |
| 2001 | Dr. Wolfgang Uhl, Duisburg | Bad Wildungen |
| 2000 | Dr. Thilo Hofmann, Dortmund | Weimar |
| 1999 | Dr. Hilmar Börnick, Dresden | Regensburg |
| 1999 | Dr. Gudrun Gräbe, Karlsruhe | Regensburg |
| 1998 | Dr. Achim Gahr, München | Lübeck |
| 1998 | Dr. Jürgen Lorenz, Karlsruhe | Lübeck |
| 1997 | Dr. Reiner Enders, Berlin | Lindau |
| 1997 | Dr. Roland Püschel, Hamburg | Lindau |
| 1996 | ./. | Koblenz |
| 1995 | Dr. Jutta Jahnel, Karlsruhe | Hitzacker |
| 1995 | Dr. Norbert Klaas, Stuttgart | Hitzacker |
| 1994 | Dr. Jürgen Ritz, Berlin | Coburg |
| 1993 | Dr. Stefan Huber, Karlsruhe | Badenweiler |
| 1993 | Dr. Iris Hübner, Mainz | Badenweiler |
| 1992 | ./. | Dresden |
*at the time of the award ceremony