Theory Department

As part of this year’s Girls’ Day on April 23, 2026, 32 girls aged 10 to 15 visited the Fritz Haber Institute and gained insight into the diverse work carried out in the research groups and workshops through hands-on experiments and craft projects. more

Led by Dr. Haobo Li, a new Max Planck Partner Group within the Theoretical Department of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society is being established at the School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. This initiative supports the groundbreaking research of this exceptional young scientist in catalysis and sustainable energy, while further deepening her close collaboration with the Fritz Haber Institute. The Fritz Haber Institute and the Max Planck Society will support Dr. Li in developing her Max Planck Partner Group into a dynamic hub within both the Singaporean and international scientific communities. more

Six partners from research and industry, including the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI), BASF, Siemens Energy, Dunia Innovations, and the Technical University Berlin/BasCat are launching a joint project to accelerate catalyst discovery. The German Federal Ministry for Science, Technology and Space (BMFTR) is providing €30 million in funding for the project ASCEND (Accelerated Solutions for Catalysis using Emerging Nanotechnology and Digital Innovation). The research initiative targets the defossilization of energy-intensive industries while safeguarding industrial competitiveness, with a focus on the chemical sector. The five-year project will start on April 1, 2026. more

Self-driving laboratories (SDLs) powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly accelerating materials discovery, but can they also explain their results? Researchers from the Theory Department of the Fritz Haber Insitute, in collaboration with BASF, and BasCat – UniCat BASF JointLab, show that they can. Their new AI-driven strategy works hand-in-hand with SDLs to identify better catalysts while revealing the chemistry behind their performance. The approach was validated on the industrially crucial conversion of propane into propylene. more

The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Elias Diesen as a Junior Group Leader in the Theory Department, effective December 2025. Dr. Diesen leads the research group “Magnetism in Electrocatalysis,” which focuses on advancing the theoretical understanding of magnetic effects in electrocatalytic reactions critical to next-generation energy technologies. more