Materials Chain
Materials Chain is the first and largest flagship program of the University Alliance Ruhr. It offers a platform for interdisciplinary networking that brings together researchers from fundamental natural sciences to applied materials science and production technology. More than 200 scientists from more than 150 chairs and research groups from Ruhr-Universität Bochum, TU Dortmund University, and the University of Duisburg-Essen research and teach under the umbrella of the flagship program. The profile is complemented by cooperations with 11 regional partner institutions.
Building on the proven strengths at the respective university locations, Materials Chain initiates new research projects and associations to strengthen the role of the Ruhr Area as an internationally leading research region for modern materials and their production.
Take a look behind the laboratory doors of some of the natural scientists and engineers working within the Materials Chain network:
Upcoming Events
- 25Feb
2021 Digital Workshop "Materials for Energy"
online via Zoom - 10Mar
2021 Potentials: Workflows for atomistic simulations
online via Zoom - 22Mar
2021 International Online Workshop: Materials Data Science for Accelerating Materials Discovery and Design
online via Zoom - more
Who are we? Why is collaboration important in modern materials science? And what are we working on?
Digital Workshop Materials for Energy
From February 25 to February 26, the Materials Chain flagship program will hold a digital workshop on the cutting-edge topic “Materials for Energy”:
Providing our world with more efficient and sustainable energy poses one of the greatest challenges of our times. Novel materials play a key role for enabling new energy technologies. The fast and efficient discovery and development of novel materials therefore are critical for sustainable future energy.
The workshop will provide impetus for the MCIC 2021 conference, which will take place in November 2021.
Please register via e-mail to pia.aleithe@materials-chain.ruhr. Access data for the online workshop will be provided after registration.
Materials Chain International Conference 2021
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The third Materials Chain International Conference, MCIC 2021: Materials Discovery and Processing for Energy, will take place from November 22 to November 23, 2021 in Bochum, Germany. The conference will focus on the following topics:
- Data-driven and combinatorial materials discovery
- Materials for physical energy conversion, 2D and hybrid fuctional materials
- Materials for chemical energy conversion
- Magnetic materials energy conversion
- Metals and alloys
- Production engineering and additive manufacturing
- Transfer: Start-ups and systems
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Photosynthetic proteins can convert light energy into other forms of energy. Researchers want to make this technology usable for the industrial production of fuels, for example. A research team from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), together with colleagues from Lisbon, has produced a semi-artificial electrode that could convert light energy into other forms of energy in biosolar cells. The technique is based on the photosynthesis protein Photosystem I from cyanobacteria. The group showed that... read more
Catalytic Activity of Individual Particles
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Analyzing nanoparticles individually is a challenge precisely because they are so small. A new technique using electron microscopy and a robotic arm could make the process much easier. Precious metal-free nanoparticles could serve as powerful catalysts in the future, for example for hydrogen production. To optimize them, researchers must be able to analyze the properties of individual particles. A new method for this has been suggested by a team from the Center for Electrochemistry at Ruhr-Universität... read more
Nanochip with Quantum Advantage
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The technology is potentially more powerful than the world's fastest supercomputer. A Danish-German research team has developed a tiny chip based on quantum technology that - if realized on a larger scale - could surpass the computing power of a classically operating supercomputer. The researchers showed that their nanochip can, in principle, achieve this so-called quantum advantage. Light particles, also called photons, are generated in the chip and can be used as on-the-fly quantum information... read more