Author: chemopsycho

Farewell Astha

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Astha Singh leaves the Kühnel Lab after almost 3 years. She was the first postdoc to join the Lab after our relocation to Hohenheim and spent a lot of her time tirelessly transforming our space from a dump into a functioning lab. Astha worked on porous materials for solar-driven H2 evolution and CO2 reduction as well as on enzyme catalysis. She published one paper on a coffee waste/COF nanocomposite and several more are to come in the near future.

Astha is moving to Bangkok to take up a semi-independent post. We will miss you and wish you the best of luck for the future!

Welcome (back) Pauline and Zaid

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Pauline Giertz joins the Kühnel Lab as a new PhD student. Pauline studied Chemistry in Münster and received her Master’s from KIT. She will work on photocataytic CO2 reduction.

Zaid Wonde returns to the Kühnel Lab after a joint Master’s with Christine Cavazza in Grenoble. Zaid studied biology in Hohenheim and will work on biohybrid systems for solar hydrogen production.

Paper in EES Catalysis

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Léonard’s article about O2-tolerant bioelectrochemical CO2 reduction was published in EES Catalysis (read her paper here). His paper demonstrates that a combination of enzyme immobilisation on functionalised electrodes, maintaining the enzyme in a reduced state and using tailored solvents enables efficient and robust electrochemical CO2 reduction with a highly senstivie carbon monoxide dehydrogenase enzyme, even when the CO2 contains up to 14% O2.

Energase project kick-off

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From left to right: Moritz Kühnel, Hajo Kries, Michael Stier, Fabrizio Casilli, Ewan McQueen, Johannes Kästner

We kicked off our ENERGASE project with a workshop at the University of Stuttgart’s Institut of Technical Biochemistry with our collaborators from the Kries and Kästner groups. In this project, we aim to jointly develop a de novo enzyme to produce green hydrogen through a non-natural mechanism. To do that, we are combining theory, synthetic biologyand nanotechnology. This blue-sky project is funded by the Carl Zeiss Stiftung and their CZS Wildcard programme for high-risk-high-reward ideas.

Welcome Thomas and Antonia

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Thomas Albani joins the Kühnel Lab as from University of Milano-Bicocca as an intern funded by the an Eramsus+ mobility programme. Thomas will work on flow photochemistry for his Chemistry Master’s project.

Antonia Lämmle-Berkhan joins us as research intern as part of her Environmental Protection & Agricultural Food Production Master’s degree at Uni Hohenheim. She will work on biohybrid waste upgrading in collaboration with Christine Cavazza and Julien Pérard at CEA Grenoble.