Summer in the laboratory: 24 students from all over the world start their summer project
Group picture at arrival day at HZB. © S. Kodalle/HZB
For eight weeks the summer students are now working on a research project at the Helmholtz Centre Berlin. Experienced scientists of the HZB will support them. On Thursday, 30 August, they will present their results.
This year, 282 young people from all over the world applied to take part in the HZB's summer program. But only 24 places are available. Now the selected students can start their project. They come from 14 different countries, including Egypt, China, Cuba, Russia and Thailand, and study STEM subjects in Bachelor's or Master's programmes at their home universities. For many, the summer student program is the first step into research.
"Once again this year, many HZB researchers have signed up with project ideas for summer students and agreed to intensively support the students," says Gabriele Lampert, who coordinates the summer student program. "I know that this also means additional work, but the experience from recent years also shows that it is often worth it for both sides. Because it happens again and again that summer students come back later, for example for a doctorate, as cooperation partners or users.
Finally, the summer students will present their results on 30 August 2019 at 11:00. Three students will give a short lecture, all others will explain their project with a self-designed poster.
- Battery research: visualisation of aging processes operandoLithium button cells with electrodes made of nickel-manganese-cobalt oxides (NMC) are very powerful. Unfortunately, their capacity decreases over time. Now, for the first time, a team has used a non-destructive method to observe how the elemental composition of the individual layers in a button cell changes during charging cycles. The study, now published in the journal Small, involved teams from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), the University of Münster, researchers from the SyncLab research group at HZB and the BLiX laboratory at the Technical University of Berlin. Measurements were carried out in the BLiX laboratory and at the BESSY II synchrotron radiation source.
- Green hydrogen: A cage structured material transforms into a performant catalystClathrates are characterised by a complex cage structure that provides space for guest ions too. Now, for the first time, a team has investigated the suitability of clathrates as catalysts for electrolytic hydrogen production with impressive results: the clathrate sample was even more efficient and robust than currently used nickel-based catalysts. They also found a reason for this enhanced performance. Measurements at BESSY II showed that the clathrates undergo structural changes during the catalytic reaction: the three-dimensional cage structure decays into ultra-thin nanosheets that allow maximum contact with active catalytic centres. The study has been published in the journal ‘Angewandte Chemie’.
- Solar cells on moon glass for a future base on the moonFuture settlements on the moon will need energy, which could be supplied by photovoltaics. However, launching material into space is expensive – transporting one kilogram to the moon costs one million euros. But there are also resources on the moon that can be used. A research team led by Dr. Felix Lang of the University of Potsdam and Dr. Stefan Linke of the Technical University of Berlin have now produced the required glass from ‘moon dust’ (regolith) and coated it with perovskite. This could save up to 99 percent of the weight needed to produce PV modules on the moon. The team tested the radiation tolerance of the solar cells at the proton accelerator of the HZB.