Anna Seltmann and Stefanie Arnold presented work at the 13th EEIGM International Conference on Advanced Materials Research (AMR) in Nancy, France. Anna Seltmann presented a poster with the title “Ionic Liquids as Electrolytes in Supercapacitors” and Stefanie Arnold gave a talk on “Hybrids for Electrochemical Technologies: From Batteries to Desalination and Closed-Loop Recycling”.
Anna Seltmann, Nicolas Huth, and Volker Presser were involved with the 116th MNU Federal Congress of the German Association for the Promotion of Mathematics and Science Education in Saarbrücken, Germany.
Volker Presser gave a seminar talk with the title “Quo vadis BatterienMythen, Fakten und Entwicklung”.
Anna and Nicolas provided a hands-on workshop to build your own battery (BYOB) to create (and test) functional coin cells.
Anna Seltmann and Nicolas Huth represent our team and outline our team’s profile at the TraWeBa event “Trendsetter Battery“.
New collaborative paper published in Battery Energy on “Intraparticular inhomogeneity limits capacity in lithium sulfur batteries with carbonate electrolyte”. This work shows that the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries with carbonate electrolytes is strongly governed by how the cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI) forms inside nanoporous carbon host particles during the first discharge. Using cryogenic electron microscopy together with electrochemical analysis, we found that the CEI is not a uniform surface film but develops heterogeneously into the particle, leaving larger particles with inactive interior regions and therefore lower sulfur utilization. The results show that reducing carbon particle size improves capacity and rate performance, while also providing clear design guidelines for more efficient solid-state Li-S cathodes. Collaborative work with the groups of Christian Prehal and Alen Vizintin.
In our work, we have developed a new multi-phase transition metal oxalate anode material for lithium-ion batteries by combining five transition metals in a simple co-precipitation process, creating a structure that improves both charge transport and structural stability during cycling. The best-performing composition, TMOx-2, showed strong long-term performance, retaining 827 mAh/g after 400 cycles at 100 mA/g and 498 mAh/g after 400 cycles at 500 mA/g. The study highlights how multi-phase design can enhance lithium storage performance without relying on complex synthesis routes, offering a promising strategy for next-generation high-performance battery materials.
Nikolaos Papadopolous gives an oral presentation at the 22nd Symposium on Modeling and Experimental Validation
of Electrochemical Energy Technologies (ModVal 2026) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The presentation has the title “Electrochemical Modeling of Silicon in Lithium-Ion Batteries Using a Multi-Species, Multi-Reaction Framework with Atomistic Insights”.
New collaborative paper spearheaded by Gündog Yücesan published in Advanced Functional Materials (and featured on the back cover). In this work, we introduce flexible bimetallic phosphonate crystals as a new class of energy-storage materials that combine mechanical flexibility with remarkable chemical stability and electrochemical activity. The material remains structurally stable across a broad pH range and delivers specific capacitances of around 140 F/g under mildly acidic and alkaline conditions, making it an attractive and more sustainable alternative to conventional supercapacitor electrodes.
Congratulations to Stefanie to be admitted to the Young Academy (Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz)! Since 2016, The Young Academy | Mainz has been the Academy’s dedicated programme for supporting emerging talent. Membership gives selected scientists, writers, and musicians the chance to build an interdisciplinary network and engage across fields. A key principle is the full and equal involvement of Young Academy members in the Academy’s activities. Active participation in meetings and events – and regular exchange with members of the established scholarly society – are therefore central to the programme. Members are also encouraged to shape the agenda themselves by organising events and launching new initiatives, especially through interdisciplinary working groups that pursue timely research questions developed independently by the members.
Welcome to the team! Ayush Gadpayle will be working on the Ec=m² Research Training Group and will explore MXene and the world of inter-layer functionality.
New paper published in Chemistry of Materials. This constitutes collaborative work between the Universität Salzburg (Michael Elsaesser, Saeid Borhani, Gregor Zickler), the Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology (INP Greifswald) e.V. (Antje Quade), and us (Stefanie Arnold, Le Thao). Congratulations to Stefanie Arnold for her debut as last-and-corresponding author!
The work has now been featured on the cover of the journal. Our paper reports a scalable synthesis of iron-loaded carbon spherogels with tunable iron content, where uniformly distributed iron nanoparticles are embedded in a porous, conductive carbon framework to create lithium-ion battery electrodes with high capacity and strong cycling stability. It shows that these materials can reach capacities up to 1190 mAh/g with Coulombic efficiencies above 99% over 300 cycles, and that the best performance comes from balancing iron redox activity with the structural stability of the carbon host rather than simply maximizing iron loading. Our work matters because it positions iron-loaded carbon spherogels as a more sustainable, cobalt-free and nickel-free route to high-performance conversion-type battery electrodes, addressing a central materials challenge in next-generation energy storage.
New paper published in Energy Advances. Our collaborative work with the group of Michael Naguib reports the synthesis of a delaminated 2D molybdenum boride MBene aerogel, Mo4/3B2Tx, and shows that it works very well as an anode material for lithium-ion storage because it combines accessible active sites, fast charge storage, and strong structural stability. The material delivered about 260 mAh/g after 500 cycles at a current of 2 A/g, and it reached an energy density of about 363 Wh/kg at 100 mA/g, which makes it promising for lithium-ion batteries and lithium-ion capacitors. DFT calculations support the experiments by showing that lithium prefers energetically favorable hexagonal Mo sites and moves with a relatively low diffusion barrier, helping explain the strong rate performance and long cycling stability.
New paper published in Desalination on position-resolved ion concentration from operando X-ray transmission. This collaborative work introduces position-resolved operando synchrotron X-ray transmission to directly map local ion concentration changes inside a working capacitive deionization (CDI) cell – separating contributions from the flow channel electrolyte and the two nanoporous electrodes. Using a CsCl model electrolyte, we show how flow rate creates strong spatial gradients along the channel and how ionophobic ultramicropores (< ~0.7 nm) can dominate performance by promoting counter-ion adsorption and higher charge efficiency. Authors: Max V. Rauscher, Richard Kohns, Malina Seyffertitz, Sebastian Stock, Sylvio Haas, Christian Prehal, Nicola Hüsing, Oskar Paris.
New collaborative research published in Advanced Materials on the niobium nanoparticle decorated carbon particles as high performance sodium sulfur battery electrodes.
New paper published in ACS Energy Letters on interlayer-tailored Alkyl-MXenes for selective electrochemical lithium-ion extraction. The paper reports a two-step electrochemical lithium-ion extraction strategy using interlayer-tailored Ti3C2Tx MXene electrodes. By pre-intercalating long-chain organic molecules (hexadecylamine, HDA, and decyltrimethylammonium, C10), the MXene interlayer environment is tuned to favor Li+ over competing Na+, improving both selectivity and extraction rates. In the demonstrated conditions, the HDA-intercalated MXene shows 2.2 mmol/L Li uptake with suppressed Na uptake (<0.2 mmol/L), and both HDA-Ti3C2Tx and C10-Ti3C2Tx maintain nearly 100% lithium purity over 50 cycles. Co-authors: Cansu Kök, Karamullah Eisawi, Jean G. A. Ruthes, Burcu Tan, Antje Quade, Michael Naguib. We are grateful to be featured on the Supporting Cover.
New paper published in ACS Applied Energy Materials on the use of quaternary electrolytes for enhanced capacitive energy storage. This collaborative work explores quaternary electrolytes (two distinct cations and two distinct anions) as a practical strategy to improve electrical double-layer capacitors – combining a solvable theoretical pore-charging framework with experimental validation using [EMIM][BF4] mixed with lithium salts. We show that quaternary mixtures can outperform neat ionic liquids and conventional mixtures sharing a common ion, enabling more balanced charge storage in nanoporous electrodes and enhanced capacitive energy storage. Authors: Ume Habiba Ishaque, Mingren Liu, Dariusz Gołowicz, Taras Verkholyak, Krzysztof Kazimierczuk, Andrij Kuzmak, Svyatoslav Kondrat.
New paper published in ACS Applied Energy Materials. This collaborative work explores the electrochemical pathway behind cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI) formation in Li-S batteries operated with carbonate-based electrolytes. By using microporous carbon-sulfur cathodes and tracking the first discharge, we propose an electrochemical nucleophilic mechanism in which polysulfides and solvent molecules react inside confined pores, forming a CEI that is largely LiF-rich. This interphase effectively seals carbon pores, limits further solvent intrusion, and can improve cycling stability – offering new design principles for more practical carbonate-based Li-S systems. Authors: Francisco J. García-Soriano, Jan Jerovsek, Santiago A. Maldonado-Ochoa, Fabian Vaca Chávez, Delvina Japhet Tarimo, Bostjan Genorio, Marc Florent, Teresa J. Bandosz, Robert Dominko, Christian Prehal, Alen Vizintin.
We are grateful that our collaborative review paper (led by Amir Razmjou) obtained the Best Review Paper in Desalination 2023–2025 Award from the Elsevier Journal Desalination.
Our team competed this year again at the International Olympiad in Electrochemical Material Science, which starts to become a bit of a tradition. This year, Energetic People (Stefanie Arnold, Peter Burger, Anna Seltmann) won the 3rd place! 🏅A special thanks to Fyodor Malchik for organizing this amazing event!
Volker Presser has been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher (2025 edition) by Clariate.
We are happy to announce Wensen Wang having received the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers to carry our research on ion separation! We are excited!
