A highlight of the visit is the tour of the BESSY II experimental hall. Here, the Deputy Prime Minister (3rd from left) discovers the endstations of the X-ray source with the Scientific Director Bernd Rech (4th left).
© C. Collado / HZB
Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore visits HZB
At the beginning of the visit, Bernd Rech introduces the Helmholtz Association and HZB's research as well in Adlershof as in Wannsee.
© C. Collado / HZB
The Deputy Prime Minister follows Andreas Jankowiak's presentations with great interest. In the control room of BESSY II, the accelerator expert introduces the guests to how the light source works.
© C. Collado / HZB
The first stop in the experimental hall is the hutch of the macromolecular crystallography research group. Manfred Weiss reports, among other things, on the research that led to the decoding of the three-dimensional structure of the main protease of the SARS-CoV2 virus.
© C. Collado / HZB
This is the size of the pin on which a crystal is mounted where the brilliant X-ray light (synchrotron light) shines through. This allows researchers to peer into the matter and better understand its secrets.
© C. Collado / HZB
The second stop at BESSY II brought the delegation to EMIL (Energy Materials In-Situ Laboratory Berlin).
© C. Collado / HZB
With humour and Lego, Steffi Hlawenka brings thin-film technology closer to the guests and reports on the new research platform for catalysis: CatLab.
© C. Collado / HZB
In bright sunshine, the delegation learned about new technologies in the field of photovoltaics and solar cells.
© C. Collado / HZB
Postdoc Jiahuan Zhang proudly presents a solar cell developed in her group that currently holds a world record with an efficiency of almost 30 per cent.
© C. Collado / HZB
At the end, the participants exchange ideas about research and R&D in Germany and Singapore. They agree that they would like to build on these fruitful discussions and envisage future projects.
© C. Collado / HZB
A group picture with the delegation and all those involved from the HZB.
Thank you very much for your visit, Heng Swee Keat!
© C. Collado / HZB
On Friday, 17 June, a delegation from Singapore visited HZB. Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, was accompanied by the Ambassador to Singapore in Germany, Laurence Bay, as well as representatives from research and industry.
It is the Prime Minister's first trip to Europe since the start of the pandemic. Before his stop in Berlin, he was in the UK, including London Tech Week and the Oxford Science Park.
The delegation led by Heng Swee Keat got some insights into HZB's energy and materials research as well as the science conducted at BESSY II light source and in the new catalyst laboratory CatLab.
All participants were delighted about the fruitful discussions and would like to deepen the scientific exchange between the two countries.
- 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.
- New instrument at BESSY II: The OÆSE endstation in EMILA new instrument is now available at BESSY II for investigating catalyst materials, battery electrodes and other energy devices under operating conditions: the Operando Absorption and Emission Spectroscopy on EMIL (OÆSE) endstation in the Energy Materials In-situ Laboratory Berlin (EMIL). A team led by Raul Garcia-Diez and Marcus Bär showcases the instrument’s capabilities via a proof-of-concept study on electrodeposited copper.
- 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’.