The science festival “Highlights of Physics” takes place from September 27 to October 1, under the slogan “microcosm”. The centerpiece of the event is a large interactive exhibition on the Münsterplatz in Ulm. HIU takes part with its own stand on lithium ion batteries and alternative battery systems. The exhibition is divided into three areas: “Physics and Life”, “measurement methods of bio and quantum physics” and “look into the quantum world.”
Besides the highlights show in the Ratiopharm Arena moderated by Ranga Yogeshwar there are lectures, workshops for pupils and an Einstein Slam.
The festival was launched in 2001 by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Society of Physics (DPG). It takes place in a different place from one year to the next and with different subjects each time. Ulm is the 16th location. It annually attracts more than 30,000 visitors. Organizer of this year’s Science Festival is next to the BMBF and the DPG and the University of Ulm.
Lithium-ion batteries power our smart phones, tablets, laptops, and, in the next future, electric cars. However, these highly efficient and effective energy storage devices may be affected by some flammability risk due to the employment of organic solvents in electrolyte. The presence of volatile, low flash point organic solvents, in fact, increases the risk of fire in case of outside- and inside-the-cell malfunctions.
Italian and German researchers directed by Professor Jusef Hassoun at the University of Ferrara (Ferrara, Italy) and Professor Stefano Passerini at the Helmholtz Institute Ulm of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Ulm, Germany), with the financial support of the BMW Group, have addressed this issue with remarkable results. The researchers replaced the organic solution in the lithium-ion battery by a room temperature molten salt (also known as ionic liquid), thus realizing organic solvent-free electrolytes. The absence of volatile, low flash point organic solvents substantially improves the fire resistance of the battery.
Ionic liquids have been proposed since long-time as flame resistant electrolyte components. However, the long-term performance of lab-scale batteries using ionic liquid-based electrolyte has been proved only recently. The cell developed is capable of thousands of charge-discharge cycles without any decay as reported in the high ranking journal “Energy & Environmental Science” of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016:
Exceptional long-life performance of lithium-ion batteries using ionic liquid-based electrolytes
Giuseppe Antonio Elia, Ulderico Ulissi, Sangsik Jeong, Stefano Passerini and Jusef Hassoun
Energy & Environmental Science 2016, DOI: 10.1039/c6ee01295g
Thomson Reuters has named Stefano Passerini among their list of the world’s most influential scientific minds of 2015. The annual list comprises authors whose work has permanently possessed great influence in the form of citations from fellow scientists. The corresponding report identifies the best and most influential scientists from among the world’s estimated nine million researchers who publish upwards of two million papers each year. Highly cited researchers were assigned to one of 21 main specialty areas, based on a majority of the specific journals in which they published their highly cited papers between 2003 and 2013. The report also includes a ranking of the “hottest researchers”, whose published papers were cited immediately after publication at extraordinarily high levels.
Since January 2014, Passerini holds a professorship at the HIU and since July 2015 he is also deputy director of the institute. He has been working on the development of materials and systems for electrochemical energy storage for 30 years. His research efforts are focused on the fundamental understanding and the development of materials for lithium batteries, such as ionic liquids, polymer electrolytes, and electrode materials. He is author of over 400 publications.
Dr. Kiran Chakravadhanula, Dr. Anji Reddy Munnangi und Dr. Alberto Varzi welcomed the guest from Chennai, India, and presented the research activities of the different groups and the modern infrastructure. Prof. Gopalan is associate director of the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI) and head of the Centre for Automotive Energy Materials. The focus of his research comprises High Tc Superconductors, Magnetic materials and Li-ion batteries.
HIU cooperates mainly by EU projects with institutions from all European countries, where battery research is done. Furthermore there is a lively exchange of ideas with American, Canadian und Chinese research centers. In the last two years HIU scientists also expand and cultivate relationships with Indian universities and research centers by visiting institutions in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai and giving lectures there.
HIU organizes international symposium on magnesium batteries
Efficient energy storage is required to buffer electricity from renewable sources or to provide electric cars with energy. A suitable technology for this could provide the magnesium battery in the future as it covered a number of attractive features. About 100 leading experts swapped ideas on the current status and the pending challenges for magnesium (Mg) as a battery raw material from 21 to 22 July 2016 at the symposium. It was held in conjunction with the Ulm Electrochemical Talks (UECT).
It was the first international symposium on magnesium batteries and it was aimed to discuss the latest state of research and to identify future scenarios. The presentations and posters at the symposium dealt with the topics electrolytes and additives, electrode interfaces, cathodes, anodes, modeling and systems.
Compared to lithium, magnesium may release and absorb two electrons, making it a very interesting material for battery research. Magnesium batteries are currently the most often researched candidates for lithium-free alternatives in the field of “high-voltage batteries” – not least because some automobile manufacturers invest in the research of magnesium batteries. The advantages are obvious: Magnesium is less reactive and thus less dangerous. During charging no dendrites grow with magnesium, which represents the main challenge to security in the use of lithium metal anodes. It is also cheaper to produce because it reacts less rapidly with air as lithium metal. Magnesium is available in large quantities, for instance in the form of rock dolomite, which results in lower prices. Magnesium batteries could be used as stationary energy storage, for example in wind turbines or solar panels.
Statement by the Director Professor Maximilian Fichtner
As an international research institute we stand for an open, solidary and peaceful together. We condemn all forms of intolerance, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism. And we oppose all kinds of hate and violence.
At the Helmholtz Institute Ulm a team of scientists from around the world is researching. One third of the researchers are coming from other countries, many of them from non-EU countries. Also numerous visiting professors from different countries doing research and teach at our institute. Diversity of opinion and the international exchanges are the basis of our research and teaching activities. Our recent research success would not have been possible without this plurality. For us there are no differences in our employees and our guests from around the world – no matter what nationality, ethnicity, culture, religion or social class they belong to.
Link to the German Rectors’ Conference webpage „Weltoffene Hochschulen – Gegen Fremdenfeindlichkeit“: http://www.hrk.de/weltoffene-hochschulen
Dr. Fabienne Gschwind represented HIU at the boat trip on Lake Constance, the final event of the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The traditional boat trip across Lake Constance was again hosted by the German Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. 29 Nobel Laureates and some 400 selected young scientists from 80 countries had spent the week in Lindau discussing central topics from the field of physics.
The boat trip on the MS Sonnenkönigin and the picnic on the meadows surrounding Mainau castle provided the delegates with a good opportunity for networking. An important topic of discussion was the climate change and renewable energy. In this context, particular attention was paid to the presentation of the innovative HIU battery research, which is an important key to the success of the energy transition and the electric mobility.
The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings have been hosted on the banks of Lake Constance every year since 1951. Once every year, 30–40 Nobel Laureates convene at Lindau to meet the next generation of leading scientists: undergraduates, PhD students, and post-doc researchers from all over the world. The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings foster the exchange among scientists of different generations, cultures, and disciplines. The meetings focus alternately on physiology and medicine, on physics, and on chemistry – the three natural science Nobel Prize disciplines.
Stefano Passerini, deputy director of HIU, has been appointed as member of the board of the International Meeting on Lithium Batteries (IMLB). He is involved in the organisation of the IMLB 2020, which is going to take place in Berlin.
IMLB is the premier international conference on the state of lithium battery science and technology, as well as current and future applications in transportation, commercial, aerospace, biomedical, and other promising sectors. Currently IMLB 2016 takes place in Chicago and has drawn about 1,600 experts, researchers, and company representatives involved in the lithium battery field.
The meeting provides a forum to discuss recent progress in advanced lithium batteries for energy storage and conversion. It focuses on both basic and applied research findings that have led to improved Li battery materials, and to the understanding of the fundamental processes that determine and control electrochemical performance. A major (but not exclusive) theme of the meeting addresses recent advances in beyond lithium-ion technologies. The conference covers a wide range of topics relating to lithium battery science and technology.
On 17 June 2016, the HIU celebrated its fifth anniversary with around 100 guests. Professor Michael Weber, president of the University of Ulm, Professor Horst Hahn, founding director of HIU, Professor Maximilian Fichtner, director of the HIU and guest speaker Professor Jürgen Garche drew a very positive conclusion.
On 24 September 2010, the former presidents of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Ulm, Professor Eberhard Umbach and Professor Karl Joachim Ebeling, and the coordinator of the HIU and later founding director Professor Horst Hahn submitted one out of three proposals for the funding and formation of the HIU to the Helmholtz Association. On 1 January 2011 the HIU was established as a center of excellence for battery research in a ceremony with the former Federal Research Minister Annette Schavan and the Baden-Württemberg Minister President Stefan Mappus.
In his address at the anniversary event University President Professor Weber stressed the great importance of electrochemistry for its university and underlined how much the University has benefited from the establishment of the HIU on the university campus in the last five years.
The establishment of the institute was quickly succeeded because of the existing expertise of the two founding partners and associated partners of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW), Professor Hahn summed up. At the beginning 35 new positions were created, now 130 scientists working at the HIU. As a member of the Helmholtz Association, the HIU is financed with 90 percent by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and with 10 percent by the State of Baden-Württemberg. The base budget of HIU is 5.5 million euros per year.
In 2014, the HIU has been integrated as a regular institute in the program-oriented funding of the program “Storage and Cross-linked Infrastructures” (SCI), of the Helmholtz Association. In October of the same year the scientists moved into the new building, which annulled the spatial separation of the researchers who worked at various locations of the partners before.
Professor Fichtner praised the more than 300 scientific publications that have been released since the founding and at the same time wished further innovative ideas in battery research by his colleagues.
The researchers of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm met for a two-day biannual meeting to develop long-term planning and solutions and to break new ground. The aim of the meeting was to take time for future issues of battery research aside of the day-to-day business and to develop strategic considerations for the coming years and to strengthen cooperation within the HIU.
Director Maximilian Fichtner highlighted the particular shape of the HIU with its four partner institutions, which makes it possible to use the salient capabilities of the partners and to unite in the different research groups under the umbrella of the HIU. “The HIU is well integrated into the national and European research collaboration, HIU representatives are involved in decision-making processes in the fields of energy policy and in particular battery research and also parts of our work have gained international attention,” Fichtner took stock of the five-year anniversary of HIU.
The meeting was characterised by efforts to further involve young scientists in the discussion on the future direction. The four interdisciplinary research topics, so to speak, the core business of HIU, in which all groups are working together, have been subjected to a critical analysis and have been adjusted. Moreover, it has been agreed to count on an even closer cooperation between the research groups, especially between the theoretical modelers and experimenters, and to arrange the research direction even more dynamic to enable entirely new discoveries.
“With more than 300 publications in international databases, the HIU has so many research articles published in their subject area than any other institution in Germany”, the deputy director Stefano Passerini praised at the end of the meeting.