Aktuelle Nachrichten der AG Oschatz

Last week, 4 members of the Oschatz group did the long way to Vienna to learn about the latest findings in the field of adsorption and porous materials. Sri and Shengjun also contributed with a poster summarizing their research. It was a great trip - scientifically and personally.

Since today, the junior research group Leistenschneider is equipped with an IR spectrometer (Diamond ATR unit + KBr pellet holder).Dr. Leistenschneider thanks the funding scheme ProChancecareer of the FSU Jena for the support on the research on polymeric N-rich carbons for novel Al-N2 batteries.

This week, Volker Presser from INM Saarbruecken, with whom we are collaborating since many years, visited us in Jena. As a part of our GDCh colloquium, he gave an exciting talk about nanomaterials for ion management applications. Thank you for visiting us and see you soon again.

Our PhD student Shengjun has successfully published his work on the investigation of water adsorption kinetics in hydrophilic carbons using optical calometry. Congrats Shengjun!

Last week, Sofiia attended the 7th international conference on sodium ion batteries in Ulm. She presented her poster about “The impact of transport pores in hard carbon on the performance of SIB”.

This Friday our group participated in the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaft” together with the working group Balducci. Under the name “Carbon vs. Carbondioxide” we explained how the development of new energy storage materials based on biomass-derived carbons can actively fight the increase of CO2 emissions. In this context, we explained the energy storage mechanism of supercapacitors and Na-Ion batteries. The visitors were also able to see a porous carbon synthesis and how it is processed into electrodes for energy storage devices first hand in the lab.

As part of the GdCH colloquia, we welcomed Stefano Passerini as a speaker this Thursday. Stefano gave an outstanding talk about "Electrode/Electrolyte Interlayers Enabling Solid-State Electrolytes in Alkali Metal Batteries". It was a very informative talk that resulted in a dedicated discussion about the future of Alkali Metal Batteries. Thank you for visiting us here in Jena Stefano!

Prof. Matthias Beller from the Leibniz-Institut für Katalyse e. V. Rostock took us on a great journey through the world of homogenous and heterogenous catalysis and taught us that not only the metal, but also the ligand chemistry plays a crucial role for the catalytic selectivity. It was great to have you here!

Congrats to Wuyong. He could succesfully defend his PhD thesis with the title: "Synthesis and Application of Carbon-based Materials for the Construction of an Artificial Nitrogen Cycle with Electrochemistry". Good luck for your future! Now, Wuyong will go back to China and work for Evonik.

In his latest publication in Small, Wuyong could show that a metal-free C2N material can be used to  electrochemically reduce nitrogen to ammonia (NH3). The electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) is a potentially carbon-neutral and decentralized supplement to the established Haber–Bosch process.

We congratulate our postdoc Desiree on her Liebig fellowship, which allows her to establish her own junior research group. Her research will focus on the development of sustainable and new battery systems as an alternative to LIB.

Recently, Martin has been promoted to be a new member of the Sustainable Energy & Fuels Advisory Board​! Congrats Martin!