Launch of new catalysis centre in HZB-Adlershof
The new CatLab (blue area) will be built in close proximity to BESSY II and other laboratories. © HZB
The Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) is launching a major new project through an interdisciplinary architectural competition: an innovative laboratory and office building for expanding joint catalysis research between the HZB and the Max Planck Society (MPS). Catlab is to become an international beacon for catalysis research that will advance the development of novel catalyst materials urgently needed for the energy transition.
The starting signal has been given: the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) is inviting architecture and engineering firms to enter an architectural design competition for an innovative office and laboratory building for conducting advanced research. The building is to meet federal sustainability criteria.
The new building will greatly broaden and enhance R&D activities in the field of catalysis research at all points of the innovation process. Novel catalyst materials are destined to play a central role in the energy transition by helping replace fossil fuels with both hydrogen and synthetic fuels that can be produced using renewable energy.
It is for this reason that the HZB, the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, and the Fritz Haber Institute of the MPS are launching the long-term CatLab project in Berlin. The project partners intend to advance the development of energy-related catalysts in CatLab at the HZB-Adlershof site. CatLab’s close proximity to HZB’s BESSY II synchrotron source and its supporting laboratories with their diverse analysis and characterisation methods will produce major synergies.
The building will be located at Magnusstraße 10 in Berlin-Adlershof. An essential feature of the building must be modular expandability. Laboratory and office space should be seamlessly integrated with an Innovation Centre and a data science platform. The laboratory and office requirements that are essential for CatLab should be covered by the initial construction phase. Two further building sections are planned that will provide a location for research activities in the field of Data Science, and establish an anchor for further large industrial collaborations with space for everything from initial exploratory experiments to fully mature applications.
- HZB and National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy start cooperation in Energy and ClimateHelmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH (HZB) and the National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" (NaUKMA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU serves as the starting point for collaborative research, academic exchange, and capacity-building between the two institutions. Actions will be taken to establish the Joint Research and Policy Laboratory at NaUKMA in Kyiv. The aim of the future laboratory is to jointly develop research and policy analysis, focusing on the energy and climate dimensions of Ukraine’s EU integration.
- MAX IV and BESSY II initiate new collaboration to advance materials scienceSwedish national synchrotron laboratory MAX IV and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) with BESSY II light source jointly announce the signing of a 5-year Cooperation Agreement. The new agreement establishes a framework to strengthen cooperation for operational and technological development in the highlighted fields of accelerator research and development, beamlines and optics, endstations and sample environments as well as digitalisation and data science.
- Michael Naguib is visiting HZB as a Humboldt Research AwardeeProfessor Michael Naguib, from Tulane University in the USA, is one of the discoverers of a new class of 2D materials: MXenes are characterised by a puff pastry-like structure and have many applications, such as in the production of green hydrogen or as storage media for electrical energy. During his Humboldt Research Award in 2025, Professor Naguib is working with Prof Volker Presser at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Saarbrücken and with Dr Tristan Petit at HZB.