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New paper published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces on porous mixed-metal oxides for lithium-ion batteries

New paper published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. This work in collaboration with the teams of Markus Gallei and Guido Kickelbick (both at Saarland University) explores shear-induced co-assembly as a step towards creating unique (ordered) materials. The latter can be conveniently converted to metal oxide / carbon hybrids via thermal annealing. For example, titanium niobium oxide / carbon obtained this way profided 335 mAh/g at 10 mA/g and a capacity retention of 84% after 1000 cycles at 250 mA/g.

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New review article published in Advanced Energy Materials on the exploration of high entropy materials in the digital age

New article published on the exploration of high entropy materials in the digital age in Advanced Energy Materials. This work was done in collaboration with the KIT (via Ben Breitung and Leonardo Velasco) and is being featured on the front title page.

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New paper published in Research on cobalt hydroxide nanostructures for high performance desalination batteries

New paper published in the AAAS journal Research on the use of hollow / nanosheet / needle-like cobalt hydroxide for the use for high performance electrochemical desalination. This material architecture allows for rapid ion removal and high stability in absence of strain-build-up. This work was done in collaboration with the team of Jie Ma at Tongji University.

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New paper published on dilatometry of pillared MXene in Journal of Physical Chemistry C

New paper published in Journal of Physical Chemistry C on the origin of better long-term electrochemical performance of silica-pillared MXene. This unique material provides enhanced performance as an lithium-ion battery electrode (ca. 300 mAh/g at 20 mA/g rate). Although larger volume changes are seen for the pillared MXene, this is not a detriment to the cycling stability. This work was done in collaboration with the teams of Nuria Tapia-Ruiz (Lancaster University) and Nuno Bimbo (now: University of Southampton).

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New paper published on redox-responsive 2-aminoanthraquinone core-shell particles in ACS Applied Polymer Materials

New paper published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials on the use of redox-responsive 2-aminoanthraquinone core-shell particles for structural colors and carbon capture. This work was done in collaboration with the group of Markus Gallei (Saarland University), Karin Jacobs (Saarland University), and T. Alan Hatton (MIT).

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Welcome new group members!

We are very fortunate to welcome new group members to our team!

  • Bowen Dong is joining us as a Ph.D. student supported by the China Scholarship Council. Bowen has graduated from China University of Geosciences (China) and will be working on MXene batteries.
  • Jerome Baudin is joining us as a EEIGM student. Jerome is enrolled in the EEIGM program and his last host University in this international program was Université de Lorraine (Nancy, France). He will be working on layered metal oxide batteries.
  • Lexane Deligniere is joining us as a EEIGM student. Lexane is enrolled in the EEIGM program and her last host University in this international program was Université de Lorraine (Nancy, France). She will be working on water desalination with layered metal oxides.
  • Xiao Zhang is joining us as a EEIGM student and as a student intern. Xiao is enrolled in the EEIGM program and her last host University in this international program was Saarland University. She will be working on MXene desalination.

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Volker Presser presents at the MaterialsWeek 2021 on ion mining

Volker Presser will be giving an invited oral presentation at the MaterialsWeek 2021 on “Ion mining: electrochemical extraction of ions from mine water and other aqueous media” on September 7th.

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Mohammad Torkamanzadeh presents work on MXene for electrochemical desalination at the Conference on Diamond and Carbon Materials

Mohammad Torkamanzadeh is giving an oral presentation entitled “Electrochemical seawater desalination with Ti3C2Tz MXene” at the 31st International Conference on Diamond and Carbon Materials (online due to COVID-19). Tune in on September 6th at 4:40 PM.

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Two contributions on electrochemical desalination at the GDCh Science Forum Chemistry 2021

Two contributions from our team at the GDCh Science Forum Chemistry 2021:

Mohammad Torkamanzadeh is giving an oral presentation entitled “MXene for electrochemical water treatment” on August 31st at 2:50 PM.

Lei Wang is presenting a poster entitled “Evolution of electrochemical desalination technologies”.

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Volker Presser presents work on electrochemical desalination with MXene at the ACS Conference

Volker Presser is giving an invited oral presentation entitled “Electrochemical water desalination with MXene” at the 2021 ACS Fall Meeting in Atlanta, USA. Due to the pandemic situation, the contribution was made via video from Saarbrücken. His contribution was part of the special symposium honoring Yury Gogotsi for receiving the American Chemical Society (ACS) Chemistry of Materials Award.

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New mini review published on three generations of electrochemical desalination in Current Opinion in Electrochemistry

New paper published in Current Opinion in Electrochemistry on three generations of electrochemical desalination. Starting with capacitive deionization with carbon in the 1960s to desalination batteries in the 2010 to now including electrocatalytical processes, the field of electrochemical desalination has become truly diverse.

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New paper published in Sustainable Energy & Fuels on lithium recovery with carbon coated LFP

New paper published in Sustainable Energy & Fuels on the degradation processes of lithium iron phosphate during electrochemical lithium recovery. Removal of dissolved oxygen suppresses the degradation but also coating of LFP with a thin layer of carbon. This work was done in collaboration with the group of Guido Kickelbick at Saarland University.

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New paper published on MXene dry wear application in ACS Nano

New paper published in ACS Nano on the significantly reduced wear on a metal surface after electro-spray coating with MXene. The work was spearheaded by colleages from Austria (TU Vienna) and Saarland University (MECS), and capitalized on the synergy of collaboration between Austria, Chile, China, Germany, and the United States of America. Our work also was featured in the news, for example:

https://www.tuwien.at/tu-wien/aktuelles/news/2d-nanomaterial-mxene-der-perfekte-schmierstoff

https://cen.acs.org/materials/2-d-materials/MXenes-make-durable-solid-lubricants/99/web/2021/04

https://www.derstandard.at/consent/tcf/story/2000125999939/neues-2d-wundermaterial-ist-der-perfekte-schmierstoff

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New paper published on electrocatalytic fuel cell desalination in Cell Reports Physical Science

New paper published in Cell Reports Physical Science on the use of a conventional fuel cell concept, enhanced by an additional flow channel, for the facile and continuous desalination of seawater. The device consumes oxygen and hydrogen gas and produced electricity, desalted water, and an acid/base couple which conveniently can be used to generate heat.

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Volker Presser presents work on desalination fuel cells at the CDI&E 2021 conference

Volker Presser presents on May 12th at the CDI&E 2021 conference work on desalination fuel cells with the title “Charge-transfer enabling of electrochemical interfaces: the third generation of capacitive deionization”.

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Media coverage of our MXene tribology work

Our collaborative MXene tribology work to-be-published in ACS Nano tracks media attention:

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000125999939/neues-2d-wundermaterial-ist-der-perfekte-schmierstoff

https://cen.acs.org/materials/2-d-materials/MXenes-make-durable-solid-lubricants/99/web/2021/04

https://www.tuwien.at/tu-wien/aktuelles/news/2d-nanomaterial-mxene-der-perfekte-schmierstoff

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New paper published on the synthesis of polyferrocenylmethylene in Macromolecular Rapid Communications

New paper published in Macromolecular Rapid Communications. Our collaborative with with colleagues from Saarland University (teams of Markus Gallei and Andre Schäfer) and TU Darmstadt shows the synthesis of polyferocenylmethylene and its properties (showcasing reversible electrochemistry).

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Volker Presser presents at DFG-Nachwuchsakademie

Volker Presser is supporting the junior research academy of the German Research Foundation (DFG) “Keramische Werkstoffe: Von den Grundlagen zur Anwendung” with a talk on how to “Boldly go into the unknown”.

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New paper published on hybrid carbon/titania spherogels in ChemCom

New paper published in Chemical Communications on the synthesis and electrochemical application of titania-loaded carbon spherogels. This work continues our collaboration on spherogels with many scientists, foremost with Michael Elsaesser (see his website www.carbon-spherogels.com)

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