Two Humboldt-Fellows join HZB
Humboldt-Fellow Kazuki Morita (left) joined the team of Antonio Abate to advance solar energy research. Qingping Wu (right) works on battery stability with Prof. Yan Lu within his Humboldt-Fellowship. Both will stay until mid 2026. © privat
In 2024, two young scientists joined HZB as Humboldt Fellows. Kazuki Morita joined Prof. Antonio Abate's group and brings his expertise in modelling and data analysis to solar energy research. Qingping Wu is an expert in battery research and works with Prof. Yan Lu on high energy density lithium metal batteries.
“I chose to come to HZB because of its outstanding reputation in materials and energy research and the opportunity to work with Prof. Yan Lu and her team on cutting-edge electrochemical storage technologies,” says Qingping Wu. A chemist by training, Wu completed his PhD in chemical engineering in 2021 and worked as an assistant professor at the Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology in China. He joined HZB in August 2024 and will stay until the end of July 2026. His research focuses on aging mechanisms and optimisation of electrode/electrolyte interfaces for high energy density lithium metal batteries.
Kazuki Morita earned his PhD from the Department of Materials, Imperial College London, UK, in 2022. He was a postdoctoral scientist at the Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, USA before joining the team of Prof. Antonio Abate with a Humboldt-Fellowship in May 2024 for the next two years. “I have been reading papers from HZB including ones from Antonio's since I was a PhD student. HZB is an ideal environment to pursue my research,” he says. He will study the stability of tin halide perovskites. “In particular, I will investigate the tin oxidation process using theory and simulations, which is my area of expertise. Prof. Antonio Abate primarily focuses mainly on experiments, so our expertise is complementary,” he says.
- Electrocatalysts: New model for charge separation at the solid-liquid interfaceHydrogen is at the heart of the transition to carbon neutrality, as both an energy carrier and a reagent for green chemistry. However, large-scale production of hydrogen via electrolysis, as well as the production of many other chemical products, requires significantly cheaper and more efficient catalysts. A precise understanding of the electrochemical processes that take place at the interface between the solid catalyst and the liquid medium is highly useful for developing better electrocatalysts. In the journal Nature Communications, an European team has now presented a powerful model that determines charge separation at the interface, the formation of the electric double layer and local electric potential variations, and the resulting influence on the catalytic activity.
- Theory meets practice – We’re heading back to HTW Berlin!The HZB’s BIPV consultancy office (BAIP) is once again coordinating and delivering the lecture series “Building-Integrated Photovoltaics”.
- AI-driven Catalyst Discovery: €30 million funding for German consortiumSix partners from research and industry, including Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI), BASF, Dunia Innovations, Siemens Energy, and the Technical University Berlin are launching a joint project to accelerate the catalyst discovery. The German Federal Ministry for Science, Technology and Space (BMFTR) is providing €30 million in funding for ASCEND (Accelerated Solutions for Catalysis using Emerging Nanotechnology and Digital Innovation). The research initiative targets the defossilisation of energy-intensive industries while safeguarding industrial competitiveness, with a focus on the chemical sector. The five-year project will start on 1st April 2026.