Linnea Ossenkop and Zegha Ghirmay join the Kühnel lab as technicians. Zaid Wonde starts as research intern working on photocatalytic hydrogen generation form biomass.
Welcome Linnea, Zegha and Zaid
English
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!
Welcome Kai
Kai Lucas Brinschwitz joins the Kühnel Lab as a research intern from University of Stuttgart. Kai will soon start his Master’s project on electrochmical waste oxidation in collaboration with Christina Roth’s Lab at University of Bayreuth. We are expecting results as good as Kai’s attire!
Bye-bye Swansea Lab
We spent half a week packing up all our equipment at Swansea University for shipping. Thanks to Brexit, there is still a lot of paperwork to be completed before it will be collected and sent to Hohenheim. Fingers crossed it’ll go through customs clearance and arrives in one piece.
Paper in ACS Sustainable Chem Eng
Read our paper with Ali Rauf’s group at Lahore University of Management Sciences on how to turn plastic waste and CO2 into formic acid using electricity. We stabilised electrodes based on earth-abundant elements by redox-doping to enable simultaneous oxidation of ethylene glycol and reduction of CO2. Both half-rections yield formic acid as the sole product, making this a green, convergent approach to valueable feedstocks currently produced from fossil reosurces (link to paper).
Moritz appointed as professor
Moritz is appointed to a tenured position as Chair of Inorganic Chemistry (W3) in the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Hohenheim. Moritz also serves as managing director of the Institute of Chemistry and as Head of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry (formerly Department of Bioinorganic Chemistry and Chemical Evolution).
Paper in ACS Sustainable Chem Eng
Read our paper with Sudha Pitchaimuthu’s group at Heriot-Watt on photoelectrochemical hydrogen production from wastewater. We demonstrate a dual protection strategy to enhance the stability of WO3/BiVO4 photoanodes with TiO2, enabling us to couple it with hydrogen evolution from polluted mine effluent (link to paper).
Moritz to speak at GRC
Many thanks to the Chairs for selecting Moritz’s abstract for a talk at the upcoming Renewable Energy: Solar Fuels Gordon Research Conference held in Ventura, California on 4th-9th February 2024 (link to conference).
Welcome Astha
Dr. Astha Singh joins the Kühnel Lab from Indian Institute of Technology Mandi as a postdoctoral research associate. She will work on photocatalyst materials development.
Funding awarded
We are very excited to receive generous funding from the State of Baden-Württemberg within the Infrastructure and Innovation Fund (SI-BW) for a state-of-the-art X-ray photoelectron spectrometer capable of operating at near-ambient pressure, e.g. in the presence of water and CO2. This NAP-XPS will allow us to study photo- and electrocatalysts in operando.
Kühnel Lab 