ISC News

In April, Dr. Jie Wei started his research work in the Helmholtz Young Investigator Group Nanoscale Operando CO₂ Photo-Electrocatalysis at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and Fritz Haber Institute (FHI) of the Max Planck Society. Wei received one of the highly competitive Humboldt postdoctoral research fellowships and will pursue his two-year project under the guidance of the academic hosts Dr. Christopher Kley and Prof. Dr. Beatriz Roldán Cuenya. more

On 27.04. it was once again time for the girls' day. The colleagues at the Fritz Haber Institute had the pleasure to invite 30 interested girls to a day full of experiments, technology and questions and to introduce different professions in a research institution dealing with areas at the interface of chemistry and physics.
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Dr. Mariana Monteiro, Electrode-Electrolyte Interfaces - Minerva Fast-Track Group-Leader at the Interface Science Department, received two awards for her outstanding PhD thesis.
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A further development in atomic force microscopy now makes it possible to simultaneously image the height profile of nanometre-fine structures as well as the electric current and the frictional force at solid-liquid interfaces. A team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the Fritz Haber Institute (FHI) of the Max Planck Society has succeeded in analysing electrocatalytically active materials and gaining insights that will help optimise catalysts. The method is also potentially suitable for studying processes on battery electrodes, in photocatalysis or on active biomaterials. more

Dr. Mariana Monteiro was awarded a Minerva Fast Track position by the Max Planck Society to establish her first research group “Electrode-electrolyte interfaces” at the Interface Science Department of the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin. This electrochemist was selected for her excellent research in electrocatalysis, and her new group will focus on fundamentally understanding the electrochemical interface of earth-abundant electrocatalysts.
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The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Starting Grant of 1.75 million Euros to Dr. Sebastian Öner, group leader at the Interface Science Department of the Fritz Haber Institute. Dr. Öner’s research aims at sensing and controlling ions at liquid-solid and vapor-solid interfaces that are broadly relevant across many scientific domains, including electro-, thermal- and biochemistry. With the ERC grant ORION, Dr. Öner’s group will develop a new electrochemical scanning probe microscopy that enables spatial control over the free energy of interfacial ions, such as protons (H⁺) and hydroxide ions (OH^-) during interfacial water dissociation (H₂O-> H⁺ + OH^-).
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The Federal Minister of Education and Research, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, visited the Catalysis Laboratory (CatLab) in Berlin-Adlershof. CatLab is a research platform for catalysis research supported by the Fritz Haber Institute of the MPG, the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion and the Helmholtz Center Berlin. The aim of the joint project is to develop important innovations that will contribute to the realization of a green hydrogen economy. During her visit to the CatLab, the minister gained insight into the latest technological developments for the production and characterization of thin-film catalysts as well as special methods for operando analytics and digital catalysis.
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On Monday, 17 October 2022, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain began their three-day visit to Germany with a reception hosted by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace. The Spanish royal couple last visited Germany together in 2014. In the evening, the Federal President will host a state banquet in honour of the royal couple. The afternoon, however, was all about science: King Felipe, who is interested in the subject of energy,  paid a visit to Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, together with his wife Queen Letizia, to inform himself about the institute’s energy research. more

FHI Director Prof. Dr Beatriz Roldán Cuenya received the Röntgen Medal 2022 in recognition of her research on catalysis, especially electrocatalysis, and the associated possibilities for the use of new sustainable energy sources of the future. The prize was awarded on 10 September by Remscheid's Lord Mayor Burkhard Mast-Weisz in the Klosterkirche in Remscheid-Lennep.
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The international conference "Challenges on renewable energy storage" at Liblice Castle near Prague started today with strong FHI participation. The conference from 29 to 31 August is being held jointly with the Czech J. Heyrovský Institute for Physical Chemistry and with the support of the CatLab project. more

Water electrolysis is a key technology to establish CO₂-neutral hydrogen production. One of the key technological hurdles is the design of stable, active and affordable catalysts for the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is one bottleneck of the hydrogen production process. Researchers from the Interface Science Department have now provided quantitative near-surface structural insights into oxygen-evolving CoO_x(OH)_y nanoparticles which are published in Nature Energy today. more

Dr. Janis Timoshenko, head of the research group "Operando Hard X-Ray Spectroscopy" in the Interface Science department, has just received the Farrel Lytle Prize for Young Scientists of the International X-Ray Absorption Society (IXAS). more