KlarText Prize for Hanna Trzesniowski
Dr Hanna Trzesniowski was honoured with the KlarText Prize for Science Communication © Annette Mueck/Klaus Tschira Stiftung
The chemist has been awarded the prestigious KlarText Prize for Science Communication by the Klaus Tschira Foundation.
Hanna is an alumna of Technische Universität Berlin and the Helmholtz-Zentrum-Berlin. She impressed the jury with her article ‘Small windows, big insights’ and made her research into sustainable hydrogen production understandable to a wide audience.
Every year, the KlarText Prize honours young researchers who present their excellent doctoral thesis to a non-scientific audience in the form of a generally understandable article or a vivid infographic. In 2025, around 200 doctoral candidates from the fields of biology, chemistry, geosciences, computer science, mathematics, neuroscience and physics applied for the award. A total of eight scientists were honoured. The award is endowed with 7,500 euros each.
The award ceremony will take place on 13 November 2025 in Heidelberg. From this date, the award-winning articles will be available in the knowledge magazine ‘KlarText’.
Development of new catalysts
Scientists use so-called operando spectroscopy methods to observe materials directly during their work - as if they were curiously looking through a small window. In her dissertation entitled ‘Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy studies of Ni-based oxygen evolution catalysts in alkaline media’, Dr Hanna Trzesniowski investigated nickel-iron catalysts for water splitting, a key process for sustainable hydrogen production. Using X-rays at the synchrotron source BESSY II, she was able to show that sodium ions penetrate the catalyst layers and stabilise their structure. As a result, the catalysts work more efficiently. Her findings will help to develop new catalysts that can produce hydrogen even more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Hanna Trzesniowski, born in Graz in 1994, studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and moved to TU Berlin for her doctorate in 2020. She was supervised by Prof. Dr Peter Strasser at the Department of Electrocatalysis / Materials at TU Berlin and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB). Hanna Trzesniowski completed her dissertation in 2024. She currently lives and works in the USA.
- X-ray analysis reveals overpainted fascist symbolsErich Mercker was a successful painter during the Nazi era and in the years that followed. After 1945, he covered up Nazi symbols in at least one of his paintings. With an interdisciplinary team, physicist Dr Ioanna Mantouvalou reports on this study in the Nature Journal Heritage Science.
- Magnon momentum microscopy: A new window into nanoscale spin-wavesAn international team lead by the Max Born Institute has developed a new type of momentum microscopy to image magnons — the quanta of collectively excited spins — directly in two-dimensional reciprocal space using soft X-rays. Measurements have taken place at BESSY II and PETRA III, first author ist the HZB physicist Steffen Wittrock. Owing to its remarkable sensitivity, simplicity, and access to nanometer-scale wavelengths, this novel technique establishes a powerful and versatile platform for exploring nonlinear magnon interactions, which are promising for future computing schemes.
- Magnetic field during catalyst synthesis triples ammonia yieldApplying an external magnetic field during the synthesis of CoFe₂O₄ electrocatalysts triples the ammonia yield during electrocatalytic conversion. The magnetic field alters the surface states of the spinel oxide thin films, making catalytically active sites more accessible. In the journal 'Advanced Functional Materials', a team led by Marcel Risch at HZB and Sanjay Mathur at University of Cologne demonstrates a scalable strategy for developing next-generation electrocatalysts for efficient and sustainable chemical production.