Three days for exchange between Users of BESSY II and BER II and HZB-scientists
Usermeetings offer a platform for exchange and communication. © M-Setzpfand/HZB
The Seventh Joint BER II and BESSY II User Meeting will take place at WISTA, Berlin-Adlershof on December 9th and 10th, the neutrons session are at Berlin-Wannsee on December 11th. The Verein Freundeskreis Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin e.V. will bestow the Innovation Award and the Ernst-Eckart-Koch Prize. Public highlights are a science slam on Wednesday, 18:30 and the public lecture by David Cahen on the power of science to bridge ideological differences (“Science: Bridge over troubled water“, Thursday 17:00). The public lecture and the science slam are open for everybody.
Wednesday 9th December: WISTA-Centre, Adlershof
- The Synchrotron Day starts at 14:00: HZB scientist will present new developments at BESSY II, followed by the Young Scientists Session and for the first time:
- a HZB Science Slam (18:30).
Thursday 10th December: WISTA-Centre, Adlershof
- The Science Day starts with a keynote lecture by Petra de Jongh (University Utrecht) about the “stability of supported transition metal catalysts”.
- The next sessions are dedicated to short oral presentations about (user)-research at BESSY II, ranging from the analysis of spins in diverse materials, protein crystallography to the geology of meteorites.
- The Innovation Award and the Ernst-Eckart-Koch Prize will be awarded by the Verein Freundeskreis Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin e.V. during the afternoon.
- At 17:00 David Cahen, head of the optoelectronic materials group at Weizmann Institute of Science, will give a public lecture, sharing his thoughts on science as a bridge over huge divides such as ideologies.
- The Poster Session accompanied by the traditional “Berlin Buffet”, kindly sponsored by the companies represented in the industrial exhibition, will conclude the evening.
Friday, 11th December: LMC-Campus, Wannsee:
- The Neutron day begins with a Neutron session, where HZB scientists will give short overviews about new options and improvements, including the presentation of the High Field Magnet.
- In the Young Scientists Session and during the Poster Session, user research will be presented.
The public lecture and the science slam are open for everybody.
More Information on the User meeting:
Download the detailed programme here.
- Nanosilver as an electrocatalyst for CO₂ reductionVia electrolysis, CO2 can be reduced to CO, a raw material for further chemical products such as fuels. Within the GreenQuest Project, an internation team led by HZB chemist Prashanth Menezes has now systematically investigated catalyst layers made of silver nanoparticles, varying both the size of the particles and their density. The best yield was achieved with nanoparticles with diameters of around 10 nm, which were loosely distributed. Furthermore, they demonstrated how the economic efficiency of the electrochemical cell can be enhanced by integrating an additional chemical reaction at the anode, enabling the simultaneous production of a valuable formic acid, hydrogen, and CO in one device.
- New technique could make MRI more preciseA team of researchers at the University of Stuttgart and HZB has developed a new method that could make MRI even more precise by eliminating “dead time,” a key limiting factor in the measurement process, thereby enabling the detection of signals that are lost using conventional methods. This method opens up new possibilities for medical diagnostics and non-destructive materials testing. The research team presents the new approach in Science Advances.
- Thin nickel films boost green hydrogen productionUltra-thin nickel oxide coatings can significantly improve the performance of anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysers, a promising technology for producing green hydrogen. This was demonstrated by a team led by HZB scientist Dr. Michelle Browne. The results show that a nickel oxide film only 10 nanometres thick outperformed conventional nickel oxide powder electrodes while using less than 1% of the catalyst material. The study is published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A,