Curious Mind Award for Michelle Browne
Michelle Browne (2. f. l.) receives the Curious Mind Award. © Tamina-Florentine Zuch for manager magazin
On Thursday, 12 October 2023, Michelle Browne received a prestigious award in Hamburg: The "Curious Mind Award" in the category "Mobility, Energy and Sustainable Business" by manager magazin.
The young chemist is researching novel material systems as catalysts for green hydrogen through electrolysis. Among other achievements, Michelle Browne has designed a larger electrolysis cell that can be produced using a 3D printer. This device allows to examine many processes under more realistic conditions than with the tiny “shot-glass” cells commonly used in the laboratory. The print data is available in open access, benefiting research groups worldwide.
Michelle Browne completed her PhD at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. After postdoctoral positions in Belfast, Prague and London, she is now building up her own research group at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. For her innovative research, she was also awarded the “L’Oréal-and Unesco Women in Science – Rising talents” Award 2021. manager magazin will publish a feature and a video on Michelle Browne and her work.
- Freeze casting - a guide to creating hierarchically structured materialsFreeze casting is an elegant, cost-effective manufacturing technique to produce highly porous materials with custom-designed hierarchical architectures, well-defined pore orientation, and multifunctional surface structures. Freeze-cast materials are suitable for many applications, from biomedicine to environmental engineering and energy technologies. An article in "Nature Reviews Methods Primer" now provides a guide to freeze-casting methods that includes an overview on current and future applications and highlights characterization techniques with a focus on X-ray tomoscopy.
- Cooperation with the Korea Institute of Energy ResearchOn Friday, 19 April 2024, the Scientific Director of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Bernd Rech, and the President of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), Yi Chang-Keun, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Daejeon (South Korea).
- Clean cooking fuel with a great impact for southern AfricaBurning biomass for cooking causes harmful environmental and health issues. The German-South African GreenQUEST initiative is developing a clean household fuel. It aims to reduce climate-damaging CO2 emissions and to improve access to energy for households in sub-Saharan Africa.