Poster award for HZB doctoral student
Congratulation to Javier Villalobos from the Young Investigator Group
Oxygen Evolution Mechanism Engineering at HZB. © HZB
Javier Villalobos has been awarded for the best poster at the International Workshop on Correlated Dynamics in Energy Conversion (IWCE 19) in Göttingen. The doctoral student works in the young investigator group "Oxygen Evolution Mechanism Engineering". His research contributes to a better understanding of electrocatalytic oxygen evolution.
On his poster, Javier Villalobos presented first results on the electrochemical synthesis of spinel oxides, which can be used as catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. The title of his poster is "Fabrication of defined spinel oxides containing manganese and cobalt by electrodeposition as model electrodes for the oxygen evolution reaction".
The presented results are the first step towards developing a model system for systematic studies on such catalysts. It is crucial to deposit films with controlled composition and microstructure. These materials will soon be investigated using operando methods on BESSY II to better understand the known differences in activity.
"With his poster, Javier Villalobos laid the foundation for a better understanding of the oxygen evolution reaction in order to produce sustainable fuels based on water (e.g. hydrogen) more cheaply," explains Dr. Marcel Risch, supervisor of the project. Since March 2019, he has been setting up a young investigator group at HZB with a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).
- Lithium-sulphur batteries with lean electrolyte: problem areas clarifiedUsing a non-destructive method, a team at HZB investigated practical lithium-sulphur pouch cells with lean electrolyte for the first time. With operando neutron tomography, they could visualise in real-time how the liquid electrolyte distributes and wets the electrodes across multilayers during charging and discharging. These findings offer valuable insights into the cell failure mechanisms and are helpful to design compact Li-S batteries with a high energy density in formats relevant to industrial applications.
- Berlin Science Award goes to Philipp AdelhelmBattery researcher Prof. Dr. Philipp Adelhelm has been awarded the 2024 Berlin Science Award. He is a professor at the Institute of Chemistry at Humboldt University in Berlin (HU) and heads a joint research group at HU and the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB). The materials scientist and electrochemist is investigating sustainable batteries, which play a key role in the success of the energy transition. He is one of the leading international experts in the field of sodium-ion batteries.
- Sodium-ion batteries: New storage mechanism for cathode materialsLi-ion and Na-ion batteries operate through a process called intercalation, where ions are stored and exchanged between two chemically different electrodes. In contrast, co-intercalation, a process in which both ions and solvent molecules are stored simultaneously, has traditionally been considered undesirable due to its tendency to cause rapid battery failure. Against this traditional view, an international research team led by Philipp Adelhelm has now demonstrated that co-intercalation can be a reversible and fast process for cathode materials in Na-ion batteries. The approach of jointly storing ions and solvents in cathode materials provides a new handle for designing batteries with high efficiency and fast charging capabilities. The results are published in Nature Materials.