Materials Development for Automotive Propulsion

680. WE-Heraeus-Seminar

14 Oct - 17 Oct 2018

Where:

Physikzentrum Bad Honnef

Scientific organizers:

Prof. Ulrike Kramm • Dr. Christina Birkel • Prof. Bai-Xiang Xu, TU Darmstadt

Scope

About 1/3 of the energy in Europe is consumed in the transportation sector. Therefore, for a carbon neutral energy generation, research and development efforts have been intensified. Batteries, fuel cells as well as synthetic fuels play an important role to enable CO2 free automotive propulsion in all fields.

However, in most of today’s state-of-the-art systems considerable fractions of expensive, rare and in some cases toxic materials are used. Therefore, one has to find suitable solutions to enable all these applications in large-scale with limiting the use of critic raw materials.

In the focus of this seminar are different electrochemical processes involved in batteries, fuel cells as well as the reduction of CO2 to higher hydrocarbons. As a CO2-free economy will be a hydrogen economy also processes involved in water splitting are of interest for this seminar.

New materials go in hand with new problems related to their application. Stability is one of the mayor issues. Therefore, techniques for better (in-situ) diagnostics of the interfacial processes and specific device architectures are important for a fundamental understanding of concurrent reactions beside the desired ones. New materials have to be efficient and enable robust operation at reactive interfaces. In addition to this, an environmental friendly production as well as recycling are of importance and should be kept in mind from an early stage of materials preparation and optimization.

Aim

The seminar should bring together young and established scientists and engineers working in these fields. The broad context should enable an interdisciplinary exchange between the participants and hopefully establish new collaborations. By the focus on new materials young researchers will be sensitized for the need to go beyond the state-of-the-art and to consider directly the footprint of new materials.

Beside invited talks, young scientists can apply for contributing talks where they would like to come in closer discussion with some of the leading scientists in their field of research.

 

The conference language will be English. The Wilhelm and Else Heraeus-Foundation bears the cost of full-board accommodation for all participants.

Further information can be found at this website