Foundation stone laying ceremony for an energy research laboratory on Wannsee campus
Prof. Dr. Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, Prof. Dr. Roel van de Krol, Dirk Mielke, Dr. Catherine Dubourdieu andMonica Wurfbaum (from left to right). Photo: HZB/J. Bierbaum
A milestone has been reached in the expansion of energy materials research at the Lise-Meitner Campus: on 23 March 2017, the celebration was held for laying the foundation stone of a laboratory building that will offer a multitude of methods for synthesising and characterising energy materials.
Construction has been ongoing since the beginning of the year: In Wannsee, a new building is being built for energy research in the scope of the Helmholtz Energy Materials Foundry (HEMF). It is expected to be completed already in December 2017. Numerous employees and construction partners celebrated the laying of the foundation stone for the flexibly usable laboratory complex together with the scientific project manager and HZB management. It has two storeys, on each of which 135 square-metre spaces will be available for physical chemistry. The Institute for Functional Oxides for Energy Efficient Information Technologies (EM-IFOX) will occupy the ground floor.
Prof. Dr. Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla stressed: “The construction of the new laboratory building is an important future project for the Wannsee campus, and perfectly complements the existing research facilities for energy materials research. With it, we are in particular expanding our portfolio in material synthesis. This is crucial prerequisite for targetedly developing energy materials with useful functions and properties.”
The HZB project manager for the Helmholtz Energy Materials Foundry, Prof. Dr. Roel van de Krol, explained that the laboratory is for developing materials and applications for energy-efficient IT, and materials for the conversion of carbon dioxide into valuable hydrocarbons for the chemicals industry. “These topics are not only very exciting and challenging research fields; they also count among the key problems that must be solved for the transition to an efficient and climate-friendly energy supply of the future.”
In EM-IFOX, institute director Dr. Catherine Dubourdieu and her team will be researching together on metal oxides. These materials have a broad spectrum of electric, magnetic, optical and mechanical properties. “These tremendously useful properties offer an enormous potential for developing new components that are extremely efficient and possess new functions. Our aim is to develop these functional oxides further to cover a greater range of applications. We want them to become as versatile as the widespread semiconductor heterostructures are today,” says Dr. Catherine Dubourdieu.
What exactly Mrs. has planned, and what synthesis and characterisation capabilities the laboratory will have, is explained here.
- Photovoltaic living lab reaches the 100 Megawatt-hour markAbout three years ago, the living laboratory at HZB went into operation. Since then, the photovoltaic facade has been generating electricity from sunlight. On September 27, 2024, it reached the milestone of 100 megawatt-hours.
- Green hydrogen: MXenes shows talent as catalyst for oxygen evolutionThe MXene class of materials has many talents. An international team led by HZB chemist Michelle Browne has now demonstrated that MXenes, properly functionalised, are excellent catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction in electrolytic water splitting. They are more stable and efficient than the best metal oxide catalysts currently available. The team is now extensively characterising these MXene catalysts for water splitting at the Berlin X-ray source BESSY II and Soleil Synchrotron in France.
- Green hydrogen: ‘Artificial leaf’ becomes better under pressureHydrogen can be produced via the electrolytic splitting of water. One option here is the use of photoelectrodes that convert sunlight into voltage for electrolysis in so called photoelectrochemical cells (PEC cells). A research team at HZB has now shown that the efficiency of PEC cells can be significantly increased under pressure.