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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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Several presentations at the 29th ISE Topical Meeting

We have several contributions to the 29th ISE Topical Meeting Energy and water: electrochemistry in securing the sustainable society development. On April 19th, Yuan Zhang is giving an oral presentation on “Sub-nanometer carbon confinement: pore size effect on ion permselectivity and selectivity”. On April 21st, Volker Presser is giving an oral presentation on “Beyond the double-layer: charge-transfer processes for high-performance desalination batteries”. Also, Stefanie Arnold is giving an oral poster presentation on “Antimony alloying electrode for high-performance sodium removal: how to use a battery material not stable in aqueous media for saline water remediation”.

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Welcome new Postdoc Qingsong Wang

Welcome new Postdoc Dr. Qingsong Wang! Having obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and worked at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Institute of Nanotechnology, he will be working on MXene and other next-generation electrode materials.

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Welcome visiting Ph.D. student Antonio Gentile

Welcome visiting Ph.D. student Antonio Gentile! Antonio is from University of Milano-Bicocca (group of Riccardo Ruffo) and will be working in the coming six months on MXene electrode systems.

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New paper published in Chemical Engineering Journal on ion selectivity of sub-1-nm carbon pores

New paper published in Chemical Engineering Journal on the correlation of ion size / hydrated ion / pore size of sub-1-nm carbon pores. The work was done in collaboration with the team of Guang Feng (HUST, China). The work demonstrates how ion selectivity in mixed ionic systems cannot reliably be predicted by single-salt baseline testing. Also, we demonstrate the importance of durability testing since effects such as ion sieving may very well vary and change over time.

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Welcome new Ph.D. student Yunjie Li

Welcome new Ph.D. student Yunjie Li! Having done her Master at Shandong University, Yunjie will be doing her Ph.D. study with us on lithium-ion batteries.

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Welcome new Master Student Wyatt Bellville

Welcome new Master Student Wyatt Bellville! Wyatt is enroled at the AMASE program and will carry out his 6 month Master thesis in our team on the topic of MXene derived electrode materials.

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Volker Presser presents work at the Chemistry Colloquium of Missouri S&T

Broadcasted online and free to join, Volker Presser is presenting work on electrochemical desalination at the Chemistry Colloquium of Missouri S&T; see online for more details:

https://chem.mst.edu/seminars/colloquium/
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Google scholar

I gratefully acknowledge that today, my google scholar h-index reached a new, round number: 60! This is a great achievement and testament the hard work of our team and to our many collaborators!

https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=mLEj95MAAAAJ

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New paper published in Macromolecular Rapid Communications on pH responsive opal structures

New paper published in Macromolecular Rapid Communications on mechanochromic and pH dependend properties of dye loaded opal structures. This work was done in collaboration with Markus Gallei (Saarland University).

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New paper published in ChemSusChem on nanoscale defect engineering and carbon nanohybridization of titanium niobium oxide

New paper published in ChemSusChem on the use of carbide-derived oxide for high performance lithium-ion battery application. The mechanochemical synthesis of the carbide is of particular interest because of potentially environmentally friendly processing route. This work was done in collaboration with Lars Borchardt (RUB).

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New paper published on antimony desalination batteries in Journal of Materials Chemistry A

New paper published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A on the use of antimony for water desalination. This may sound, at first, like a contradiction when considering that Sb is not stable in water; yet, the use of a ceramic membrane and an organic electrolyte environment engulfing the antimony electrode allows the stable and high-performance removal of sodium via the antimony – sodium – alloying reaction.

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New paper published on greigeite / graphene electrodes in Journal of Materials Chemistry A

New paper published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A on the use of metal sulfide / graphene electrodes for use in ionic liquid supercapacitors. This work was done in collaboration with colleagues from the Czech Republic (among others: Palacky University and University of Pardubice) and spearheaded by Aristides Bakandritsos and his Ph.D. student Smita V. Talande. We are grateful to be featured on the back cover.

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Media coverage of our Lithium recovery project

Our Li-recovery project MERLIN enjoys media coverage by the Saarlandian TV (Aktueller Bericht, 30.10.2020), Saarbrücker Zeitung (24.11.2020), and SR Radio (SR3, 10.12.2020). We are grateful to the RAG Foundation for providing funding.

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