Dr. Michail Papadakis joins the Kühnel Lab as a DAAD ERA Green Hydrogen Fellow from Université Aix Marseille in France. Michail obtained his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Maylis Orio studying thiosemicarbazone-based complexes as HER co-catalysts. In his postdoctoral work, he will devlop novel hybrid photocatalysts for hydrogen generation and CO2 reduction.
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Welcome João
Dr. João Felipe Stival joins the Kühnel Lab as a DAAD ERA Green Hydrogen Fellow from Universidade Federal do Paraná in Brazil. João obtained his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Shirley Nakagaki in Curitiba on metal oxide-based photocatalysis. In his postdoctoral work, he will devlop novel hybrid photocatalysts for the photoreforming of waste.
Kühnel Lab at IMBG 2025
The Kühnel Lab visited Grenoble for the 9th International Conference of the Institute of Metals in Biology Grenoble (IMBG) 2025!
This year’s topic of Fuel Synthesis through Photo- and Electrocatalysis attracted a number of great speakers and posters. We also had the chance to present both a talk and a poster on CO2 reduction and photoreforming.
Léonard presented his PhD project on improving the O2-tolerance of electro- and photocatalytic CO2-to-CO conversion by carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) enzymes through the operation in tailored deep eutectic solvents. During his talk, he showcased promising CO2 reduction data of CODH immobilized on carbon nanotube-based electrodes as well as on functionalized graphitic carbon nitride, increasing their stability towards O2 through solvent tuning.
Zaid presented his poster on the application of different graphitic carbon nitride-based photocatalysts for cheap and green generation of H2 from biowaste. He aims to improve the solar-driven production of H2 coupled with the photocatalytic oxidation of cellulose through the use of engineered carbon nitride and tailored solvents.
It was great to meet and discuss with the lovely people there, enjoying the conference as well as the collective exploration of local pubs in Grenoble 🙂
Happy Holidays
Season’s Greetings from the Kühnel Lab 🎄✨
Last week, we visited the Stuttgart Christmas Market and had a fantastic time exploring the festive atmosphere together. The market was as enchanting as ever and a perfect place to wrap up the year.
For our institute’s get-together this week, we prepared something truly special – a ChemisTree! The Kühnel Lab members came up with the idea of this unique Chemistry Christmas Tree to foster teamwork. This innovative Christmas tree is inspired by chemistry and includes parts that chemists typically use in the laboratory to conduct experiments.
The ChemisTree was assembled from retort stands and clamps to create the framework. It was then decorated with a ball-and-stick model and round-bottom flasks. Finally, to make it really Christmassy, we filled the flasks with colourful solutions of non-toxic compounds.
And it was so much fun building the tree together! 😎
We hope you like our ChemisTree as much as we do, and we wish you all a merry and peaceful holiday season!
Best wishes, The Kühnel Lab🎅🤶🏽🎁🍀
Welcome Atekelte
Atekelte Kassa joins the Kühnel Lab from Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin. He holds a dual master’s in Materials Science and Energy Science & Engineering from TU Darmstadt and will embark on a PhD project in the field of intensified photocatalysis.
Farewell Cem
Cem returns to Instanbul after his internship in the Kühnel Lab. Best of luck for the future. We will miss you!
Welcome Cem
Mücahit Cem Peküz joins the Kühnel Lab as a research intern from Gebze Technical
University, Instanbul.
Paper in Dalton Trans
Read Maite’s paper on MOF-based photocatalysts that was part of a bigger collaboration with the University of the Basque Country and Oulu University. In this paper, we investigate hydrogels based on disordered MOFs and study how different ways of platinum incorporation affect their performance for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (link to paper).
Welcome Linnea, Zegha and Zaid
Linnea Ossenkop and Zegha Ghirmay join the Kühnel lab as technicians. Zaid Wonde starts as research intern working on photocatalytic hydrogen generation form biomass.
Our kit arrives
Finally, customs let us import our equipment from Wales to Germany. 4 pallets containing almost 1000 kg of lab equipment have been shipped from Swansea University to our new lab space in Hohenheim, all looking safe and sound. Time to set up the GC and solar simulator to get the research going!
Kühnel Lab 