Shutdown BESSY II: work has started
As of 30 July 2018, BESSY II will be down for several weeks. In the summer shutdown, important components in the storage ring tunnel will be replaced and overhauled. The first conversion work for the BESSY VSR project also begins. Upgrading BESSY II into a variable-pulse-length storage ring (BESSY-VSR) will provide unique experimental conditions for researchers worldwide. The shutdown lasts until 30 September 2018, and user operation will recommence on 30 October 2018.
While the ring is down, the HZB employees will be completely modifying the multipole wavelength shifter, the EDDI beamline and the radiation protection hutches. This space will be needed for installing the cold supply for the superconducting cavities in the storage ring. These are key components in the creation of BESSY VSR. Keeping them cold, however, requires an elaborate infrastructure, which is to be built up in the experimental hall over the next two years.
There is even more that has to be done during this shutdown: colleagues from the Institute for Accelerator Physics are constructing a diagnostics beamline for BESSY VSR in the vicinity of the EMIL hutch. In addition, the two wavelength shifters will be revised and further components (Landau cavities and a CPMU17) will be installed for the EMIL laboratory. Plus, a laboratory for electrochemical experiments on solid-liquid boundary interfaces (BEIChem) is to be built at BESSY II.
You can take a detailed look at everything that will be going on during the shutdown in the HZB Science Blog
- Technology Transfer Prize Ceremony 2025This year’s Technology Transfer Prize Ceremony will take place on October 13 at 2 pm in the Lecture Hall, BESSY II Building, Adlershof.
- Porous Radical Organic framework improves lithium-sulphur batteriesA team led by Prof. Yan Lu, HZB, and Prof. Arne Thomas, Technical University of Berlin, has developed a material that enhances the capacity and stability of lithium-sulphur batteries. The material is based on polymers that form a framework with open pores (known as radical-cationic covalent organic frameworks or COFs). Catalytically accelerated reactions take place in these pores, firmly trapping polysulphides, which would shorten the battery life. Some of the experimental analyses were conducted at the BAMline at BESSY II.
- Metallic nanocatalysts: what really happens during catalysisUsing a combination of spectromicroscopy at BESSY II and microscopic analyses at DESY's NanoLab, a team has gained new insights into the chemical behaviour of nanocatalysts during catalysis. The nanoparticles consisted of a platinum core with a rhodium shell. This configuration allows a better understanding of structural changes in, for example, rhodium-platinum catalysts for emission control. The results show that under typical catalytic conditions, some of the rhodium in the shell can diffuse into the interior of the nanoparticles. However, most of it remains on the surface and oxidises. This process is strongly dependent on the surface orientation of the nanoparticle facets.