DAPHNE - Data for Photon and Neutron Experiments
© Grafik: DFG
Data in the petabyte range are produced annually at large-scale facilities. This research data must be stored for at least ten years. Now 19 scientific institutions in Germany, among them HZB, aim to develop common standards for software, data exchange and data repositories to make research data permanently available. The DAPHNE4NFDI project will be funded over the next five years as part of the National Research Data Infrastructure and is coordinated by DESY.
In research data management the FAIR criteria do apply: Data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, for humans as well as for algorithms. The connection to artificial intelligence methods or machine learning are also part of the task.
HZB is contributing its expertise in research data management to the project. HZB has already participated in European projects such as PaNDATA, from which the data repository ICAT emerged, as well as in Helmholtz initiatives, which resulted in the HMC Hub matter being located at HZB.
- 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.