Materials Chain Seminar Series “Materials and Energy: Challenges and Opportunities”
The Materials Chain Seminar Series “Materials and Energy: Challenges and Opportunities” brings together highly visible researchers across the various fields of materials science who investigate the intricate relationship between energy and materials. “Energy” and “Materials” have an overarching importance for the future development of our society. They are coupled in multiple ways ranging from fundamental science to real-world applications. Analyzing their intricate relationship as energy-materials nexus, however, is a new approach. Because solutions are urgently needed, this field requires intense interaction and collaboration across scientific disciplines and along the entire chain from fundamental science to industrial application.
The seminar series takes places on Thursdays and Fridays, typically from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
All lectures are held in the same ZOOM room.
Registration is not required, feel free to join the Seminar Series via https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom.us/j/61559986885?pwd=bTdSOTRiOTk4eGNzbC9CZEh4L3ZqUT09.
Series schedule winter term 2021/2022:
| Date | Presenter | Title |
| Friday, December 3rd 4:30 p.m. |
Prof. Gabi Schierning, Universität Bielefeld, Dünne Schichten und Physik der Nanostrukturen, Germany | Anomalies in the electrical resistivity – how they can be tailored by materials design, and how materials design might be guided by analyzing them |
| Thursday, December 9th 4:30 p.m. |
Prof. Nadja Bigall, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie, Germany | Nanocrystal Aerogels – Macroscopic Materials with Nanoscopic Properties |
| Friday, December 10th 4:30 p.m. |
Prof. Pat Unwin, University of Warwick, Department of Chemistry, UK | Quantitative Visualisation of Surface Structure-Reactivity: Next Generation Design of Materials and Processes |
| Thursday, December 16th 4:30 p.m. |
Prof. Kornelius Nielsch, IFW Dresden, Germany | From Interface Modifications of Thermoelectric Materials towards Tellurium-free Thermoelectric Devices |
| Friday, December 17th 4:30 p.m. |
Prof. Ulrike Krewer, KIT, Institut für Angewandte Materialien – Elektrochemische Technologien, Germany | Insights into Electrodes via Reaction Kinetic Modeling |
The guest lecture by Prof. Tobias Kippenberg (EPFL), originally planned for Friday, October 29th, needs to be rescheduled to a later date. The new date for Prof. Kippenberg’s lecture as well as further lectures will be announced as soon as possible.
About the Materials Chain Seminar Series
On the fundamental physics side, the control of processes under non-equilibrium conditions and the operando analysis of processes in materials and at interfaces will have practical implications for bringing the understanding and discovery of materials and the development of process design concepts to the next level. In the field of materials science, novel functional materials for energy conversion and storage, their synthesis and processing towards usable devices (batteries, water splitting, fuel cells, catalysis, and more) aims at efficient pathways for energy conversion and storage.
This field benefits from a combination of fundamental understanding as well as combinatorial materials discovery and informatics to find new materials that combine application-related efficacy with availability on the level of raw materials. These materials must also demonstrate their capabilities in a device context.
Sustainability aspects require considering the entire chain of synthesis, processing, and application and thus finding optimum solutions through techno-economical multi-criteria analysis. In this context, novel energy- and resource-efficient materials processes are highly relevant for industry such as steel manufacturing, smelting, chemical industries,
as well as for the targeted production of high-performance materials by reduction of the number of processing steps, e.g., through additive manufacturing, and recycling.
Novel high-performance materials, finally, play an enabling role for the engineering of energy-efficient technologies, such as through lightweight high-strength materials for mobility and civil engineering, high-temperature materials for turbine blades, and corrosion-resistant materials for operation under extreme conditions.