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.
- BESSY II: Magnetic ‘microflowers’ enhance local magnetic fieldsA flower-shaped structure only a few micrometres in size made of a nickel-iron alloy can concentrate and locally enhance magnetic fields. The size of the effect can be controlled by varying the geometry and number of 'petals'. This magnetic metamaterial developed by Dr Anna Palau's group at the Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB) in collaboration with her partners of the CHIST-ERA MetaMagIC project, has now been studied at BESSY II in collaboration with Dr Sergio Valencia. Such a device can be used to increase the sensitivity of magnetic sensors, to reduce the energy required for creating local magnetic fields, but also, at the PEEM experimental station, to study samples under much higher magnetic fields than currently possible.
- New material for efficient separation of Deuterium at elevated TemperaturesA novel porous material capable of separating deuterium (D2) from hydrogen (H2) at a temperature of 120 K has been introduced. Notably, this temperature exceeds the liquefaction point of natural gas, thus facilitating large-scale industrial applications. This advancement presents an attractive pathway for the economical production of D2 by leveraging the existing infrastructure of liquefied natural gas (LNG) production pipelines. The research conducted by Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST), Korea, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Heinz Maier Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ), and Soongsil University, Korea, has been published in Nature Communications.
- Georg Forster Research Fellow explores photocatalystsDr. Moses Alfred Oladele is working on photocatalysis for CO2 conversion in a joint project with the group of Dr. Matt Mayer, HZB, and Prof. Andreas Taubert at the University of Potsdam. The chemist from Redeemer's University in Ede, Nigeria, came to Berlin in the summer of 2024 with a Georg Forster Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and will work at HZB for two years.