News

 

Third quarter 2022:

A warm welcome to our new postdoc Dr. Inhee Park and our new doctoral candidate Niklas Scheer. Recently, Inhee successfully defended her doctoral thesis on „Atomic-scale friction study on Au(111) under electrochemical conditions“ in Bonn. Niklas Scheer joined us after finishing his masters in material science at the TU Darmstadt. For his Ph.D. he will work on the subject of batteries focusing on NMC cathode materials. Nicha studies chemistry at the RWTH Aachen and her research internship is about perovskite electrocatalysts.

At the GDCh Electrochemistry 2022 conference three talks are given by our group. On the subject of batteries, Philipp Veelken gives his talk on „Investigating the Interface between Ceramic Particles and Polymer Matrix in Hybrid Electrolytes by Electrochemical Strain Microscopy“ and Beatrice Wolff holds her presentation on „Electrodeposition of lithium metal - Influence of electrolyte additive vinylene carbonate on growth morphology“. Julian Borowec presents his talk „Nanoelectrical Mapping of Carbon Nanofibers by Means of PeakForce Tunneling Atomic Force Microscopy“.

Second quarter 2022:
Sincere congratulations go to Philipp Veelken! His first contribution as first author „Investigating the Interface between Ceramic Particles and Polymer Matrix in Hybrid Electrolytes by Electrochemical Strain Microscopy” is published in Nanomaterials. Furthermore, Philipp receives a Mitacs scholarship for his stay at the University of Calgary, Canada. He will continue his work on all-solid-state batteries in Milana Trifkovic’s group within the Schulich School of Engineering.

A warm welcome and good luck to Muzaffar Maksumov. He starts his doctorate on perovskite catalysts for electrolysis processes. His work contributes to the DFG SPP2080 project.

Beatrice Wolff and Florian Hausen participate at the IMLB2022 (International Meeting on Lithium Batteries). The conference is held from the June 26 to July 1 in Sydney, Australia. Enjoy the trip and the scientific exchange.

News on battery cathode materials: The article „Unraveling the State of Charge-Dependent Electronic and Ionic Structure-Property Relationships in NCM622 Cells by Multiscale Characterization“ is published with contribution of our group. Additionally, „Friction on I-Modified Au(111) in Tetraglyme Electrolyte” was published with us. We are very happy to welcome first Author Inhee Park very soon in our group.

February 2022:
Konstantin von Foerster joins our group for his research internship on membrane electrode assemblies. A warm welcome and good luck!


Fourth quarter 2021:
A new paper about the structure of ionic liquids at electrical interfaces was published involving the participation of our group. More information can be found here.

Three PhD positions and two master theses are currently vacant. We are looking forward to meet you, if you are skilled with the handling of small electrochemical cells, and if you enjoy experimental work with the scanning probe microscope. For more information visit us here or directly contact our employees.

The competence cluster for solid state batteries ‘FestBatt’ of the federal ministry of education and research is entering the second stage of funding and is supported with 23 million euros. In the joint project FestBattII-Char, our group analyses the electrical and ionic conductivity of electrode materials via advanced scanning probe microscopies.

Nino-Schön-Blume successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the analysis of solid state electrolytes via electrochemical strain microscopy (ESM). Congratulations!

Kai Fries and Patric Keister started their research internship in our group. They work on the conductivity of carbon nanofibers and the elementary deposition of lithium on copper. Good luck and a warm welcome!

Gleb Bobrov, University of Calgary, Canada, joins our group as a visiting researcher. He develops and characterises composite electrolytes based on poly(ethylene oxide) and nanocellulose.

September 2021:
From September 22 to 24 the 116th AGEF symposium on triboelectrochemistry takes place. Florian Hausen is co-organizer of the conference which probably can be visited in Bonn as well as followed online. Further information can be found on the webpage of the university Bonn.


Our group attends the annual NanoScientific Forum Europe. The virtual conference is hosted by the university of Freiburg from September 15 to 17. Interested researchers and students can register online until September 12. Philipp Veelken presents his talk „Investigating Local Ionic Conductivity in Solid-State Electrolytes by Electrochemical Strain Microscopy“ on September 16 at 2:40 p.m. Subsequently, Beatrice Wolff holds her presentation „Solid Electrolyte Interface Formation on Lithium Metal Anode Investigated by Nanomechanical Mapping“ at 2:50 p.m.


April 2021:
The new publication of first author Nino Schön with the title „Signal Origin of Electrochemical Strain Microscopy and Link to Local Chemical Distribution in Solid State Electrolytes“ DOI: 10.1002/smtd.202001279 is now featured on the Nanosensors blog.


January 2021:
Julian Borowec started his PhD in our group. His research will be on electrocatalytic processes and the elechtrochemical CO₂ reduction. A warm welcome and good luck with your research!

January 2020:
We didn’t have to miss him for long, welcome back Philipp Veelken to your PhD graduation in our group. He will continue his research on all-solid-state hybrid electrolytes.


November 2019:
Philipp Veelken successfully submitted and defended his master thesis. Congratulations on the passed exam and good luck with your upcoming challenges!

October 2019:
We would like to welcome Beatrice Wolff of the University of Bonn. She is starting her PhD graduation about lithium-metal as anode material for batteries. Good luck with your thesis!


July 2019:
Justin Charron returned home after his three month internship. Best of luck over there in Canada!

May 2019:
Justin Charron of the University of Calgary started an internship as part of the UROP program of the RWTH.
At the same time Philipp Veelken started his master thesis about hybrid electrolytes in all-solid-state lithium-batteries.
Both a warm welcome and good luck with your research!

April 2019:
A new Bruker Dimension Icon AFM was acquired.

December 2018:
Svenja wins a scholarship of the E.ON – Stipendienfonds for a research stay at NTNU, Norwegian University of Sciene and Technology, for three months. Congratulations Svenja and enjoy your stay abroad!


September 2018:
Svenja has received financial support by the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) and Arbeitsgemeinschaft elektrochemischer Forschungsinstitutionen (AGEF) for participating at the „Electrochemistry 2018“ in Ulm and AiMES conference of the Electrochemical Society in Cancun, Mexiko. Many thanks! Svenja has been accepted for oral presentations of her work at both conferences. Congratulations and Good luck, Svenja!

Nino has received financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) to participate at the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry in Bologna. Nino will give a talk about his current results. Congratulations and Good luck, Nino!

June 2018:
Johannes Braun has successfully finished his master thesis on „In-situ Investigations of Aluminum-Silicon Alloys for Metal Air Batteries via combined Atomic Force Microoscopy and Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy“. Congratulations Johannes! Thank you very much for your work and we wish you all the best for your future. Maybe we see you again.

Florian Hausen presents our current results on Electrochemical Strain microscopy (ESM) on solid state electrolytes at the IMLB2017 in Kyoto, Japan. The IMLB is the most important conference in the lithium ion battery field. Financial support is coming from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Thank you very much!

April 2018:
Nino Schöns first paper as first author entitled „Correlative electrochemical strain microscopy and scanning electron microscopy for local characterization of the solid state electrolyte Li_1,3Al_0,3Ti_1,7(PO₄)₃“ has been published in Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, DOI: 10.3762/bjnano.9.148. Congratulations Nino! It is open access.

Florian Hausen has been invited to deliver a talk at the Workshop „Battery innovation through Advanced Characterisation“ in Coventry, UK.

February 2018:
Florian Hausen has received an invitation to give a talk at SES 2018. He will speak in the symposium „Mechanics and Electrochemistry of Energy Materials“ organized by Bai-Xiang Xu and Matthew McDowell about our results in October.

December 2017:
Succesful conference on ionic liquids in Bad Honnef: Our group wins two poster prizes at the 655. WE-Heraeus Meeting, Ionic Liquids.

August 2017:
Nina Balke and Florian Hausen are organizing the 649. WE-Heraeus Seminar in Bad Honnef. Many well-known speakers from Germany and abroad will discuss on „In-operando characterization of energy materials“

July 2017:
Nino Schön is at the Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, USA, for a research stay of several weeks. Financial support comes from the HITEC graduate student program at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Thank you! Enjoy your stay and god luck, Nino!

May 2017:
Thomas Beuse has succesfully finished his master thesis „Rasterkraftmikroskopie der Mikro- und Nanostruktur unterschiedlich korrodierter und entladener Anoden in Silizium-Luft-Batterien“. Congratulations Thomas! Thank you very much for your work and we wish you all the best for your future! Thomas moves to the MEET – the battery research centre of Uni Münster.

April 2017:
Svenja Benning has won the poster prize at the Faraday Discussion on „Chemical Physics of Electroactive Materials“ in Cambridge, UK, for her poster entitled „in-situ atomic force microscopy experiments under electrochemical load“. Such a success directly with your first results! Congratulations!

November 2016:
Arnaud du Baret has finished his master thesis „Characterization of the contact surface between the anode and the ionic liquid in metal-air batteries with AFM and electrochemical methods“ in our group. Thank you very much! We wish all the best and good luck for the future!

December 2016:
Our new AFM is installed inside the glove box. Therefore, experiments in an controlled atmosphere are now feasible and we can start our regular research.