We are grateful for the Minister to take time to visit the science exhibition ship MS Wissenschaft, anchoring in Saarbrücken, Germany. We discussed climate change, scientific discoveries, basic and applied research – specifically as it pertains to our research on lithium-ion battery recycling.
We are grateful for the Minister visiting our group to learn more about the EFRE-funded eLiFlow project to continuously harvest lithium-ions from aqueous solutions.
We enjoyed our annual group retreat – due to a booking issue, reduced to one day, but no less fun! We enjoyed our group dinner, as won by popular vote, in the Vietnamese restaurant Yoko in Saarbrücken. For the scientific talks, we mixed things up: rather than all Ph.D. students and Postdocs presenting theirworks… each one was assigned a partner with a topic as different as can be within our group – and each person needed to present his/her partner’s research. 🚀
As another highlight, we had Hanna Sänger from Arenus Akademie (Tatjana Heidemann) to give a seminar on mental health. Mental health is as important as physical health – yet, it is met by stigma and taboo, as the mind reminds an opaque mystery and people rather accept what they can “see” over what they feel. Nonetheless, how we feel about ourselves and work is of highest importance and the foundation for a sustainable, productive, and healthy work life. Thanks for giving us an introductoin in this important topic (in excellent English that put myself to shame).
Thanks for our Humboldt-visitor, long-term collaborator, and true friend Michael Naguib for joining us! 💡We also got our traditional group picture done, once more, by the one and only Uwe Bellhäuser 🌼 and thank Elke Bubel for helping us so much for securing the photoshooting spot in front of the NTNM library! 📚
Looking forward to our next retreat already! And we will make sure to find a replacement appointment for some well-overdue minigolf ⛳
Panyu has successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on “Electrochemical water desalination for ion separation toward ion-selectivity and sustainable materials”. All the best to you and your continued career!
Our team was, as is tradition, part of the Open Campus and presented our work on next-generation batteries, sustainable water remediation, elemental recovery, battery recycling and interactive elements, such as a vegetable/fruit battery challenge and a build-your-own-battery challenge.
An annual tradition: our team at the PhD students’ day of Universität des Saarlandes 🎓
Cansu Kök answered the question on how to design electrochemical tools for the direct lithium-ion separation from seawater (and Saarland mine water): “Continuous lithium-ion extraction via fuel cell desalination”; work in collaboration with Lei Wang, Jean Gustavo De Andrade Ruthes, Antje Quade, and Matthew Suss.
Nikolaos Papadopoulos presented his inspiring modelling + experimental work on “Physical modeling of silicon-containing Li-ion batteries through a multi-species multi-reaction model” to design high-performance Si-based lithium-ion batteries; work in collaboration with Oliver Queisser and Simon Schwunk.
Liying Xue presented the power of multi-phase material design on high-capacity lithium-ion batteries: “Multi-phase synergy enhances lithium storage performance of oxalate”; work in collaboration with Oliver Janka and Chaochao Dun.
Welcome our visiting Ph.D. student Yassine Seffar from UM6P – University Mohammed VI Polytechnic. Yassine will be working with our team on ion-selective and advanced electrochemical desalination.
Mingren Liu and Delvina Tarimo (PhD) have been selected to participate in the 74th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. At present, Mingren works on nanoporous carbon supercapacitors and advanced battery chemistries, pushing the boundaries of energy storage. And Delvina focuses on lithium-sulfur batteries and sustainable electrode materials, driving the next generation of green energy solutions. Congratulations, Mingren and Delvina! You are the 6th and 7th member of our team to experience LINO!
Volker Presser gives two oral presentations at the MATSUS conference in Sevilla, Spain:
Welcome Burcu Tan who will be working on electrochemical lithium ion extraction in our team on the eLiFlow project.
Welcome new student intern Matthias Haller from Saarland University who will be working on exploring electrochemical energy storage and advanced supercapacitors.
Our PhD student Cansu Kök presents a poster at the 2024 Fall MRS with the title “Continuous Lithium-Ion Extraction via Fuel Cell Desalination”
Two contributions from our team at the 38th Topical Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry (Nanomaterials in Electrochemistry): Volker Presser is giving an oral presentation with the title “MXene and hybrid electrodes for high performance energy storage” and Cansu Kök present a poster on “Continuous Lithium-Ion Extraction via Fuel Cell Desalination”.
Delvina Tarimo (PhD) Tarimo has started her Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) Fellowship in our group. Delvina has a strong background in Materials Science. With a Ph.D. from the , her work was dedicated to electrochemical energy storage, with a focus on bio-sourced carbons and supercapacitors. Delvina’s fellowship project explores advanced lithium-sulfur batteries using MXene and activated carbon composites. She will look at fundamental mechanisms of these materials and optimize toward enhanced performance. We are grateful to have Delvina with us and we are excited about the joint journey ahead of us!
Welcome to your new Postdoc Meenu! She will be working on Lithium-sulfur batteries and advanced electrode materials.
Thanks to the creativity of Uwe Bellhäuser and the patience and positive energy of our whole team, we are happy to launch now our new team feature video – to share our team’s excitement about research and to showcase the real heroes and heroines of science: the people of our group! Enjoy the video and get inspired… to join us. 🚀 Explore! Create! Apply!
It is a tradition at the Natural Science Faculty of Universität des Saarlandes to have the annual PhD Day in the Aula. This year, 60 PhD student presented their research, ranging from artificial muscles, to much real mucus, from 3D printed nanofluids to very solid metals, from quantum communication to quorum sensing inhibitors. From our team:
Nikolaos Papadopoulos shared his insights into electrochemical modelling.
薛丽颖 introduced us to the concept of high-entropy battery electrodes.
Jean Gustavo De Andrade Ruthes demonstrated the exciting field of gel electrolytes.
Panyu Ren taught us the value of electrochemical ion separation.
And Le Thao presented the latest results from our collaboration with the spherogel team of Michael Elsaesser on hybrid carbon spherogels for battery applications.
Welcome Prof. Dominik Barz from Queen’s University (Canada) for his 1-month research visit to our laboratory to work on supercapacitors with us. We thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the funding of the visit.
The IOP Journal “Materials Futures” has included our paper led by alumnus Qingsong Wang in the collection of the “Materials Futures 2023 Best Paper Award”.
J. Wang, S.L. Dreyer, K. Wang, Z. Ding, T. Diemant, G. Karkera, Y. Ma, A. Sarkar, B. Zhou, M.V. Gorbunov, A. Omar, D. Mikhailova, V. Presser, M. Fichtner, H. Hahn, T. Brezesinski, B. Breitung, Q. Wang, P2-type layered high-entropy oxides as sodium-ion cathode materials, Materials Futures 1(3) (2022) 035104.
https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2752-5724/page/news-and-editorial
Welcome EEIGM student Bachir Tall, who will be working on supercapacitors during his 2-month internship.