Achim Müller (14 February 1938 – 28 February 2024) was a German inorganic chemist. Mainly as a professor at Bielefeld University, he contributed extensively to the chemistry of molybdenum oxides and sulfides. He died on 28 February 2024, at the age of 86.
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Research contributions
Oxide clusters
In the area of polyoxometalates, he claimed to have identified the structure of one form of molybdenum blue.
His later research related mainly to the synthesis of spherical porous metal oxide nanocapsules Mo132 Keplerates. He also investigated isopolyoxovanadates has provided some of the most instructive examples of host-guest inorganic chemistry, leading to the recognition that a polyoxometalate is a supramolecular species involving a negatively charged host cage and a negatively charged encapsulated guest, and hence opening a new era in polyoxometalate chemistry. The template self-organization of an ”electronically inverse host” around a negatively charged guest might seem somewhat puzzling: According to theoretical studies, this follows from the fact that electrostatic repulsion is overcome by maximizing the molecular electrostatic potential at the guest.