Research and Development Platform HEMF

Welcome to the Helmholtz Energy Materials Foundry (HEMF)

The Helmholtz Energy Materials Foundry (HEMF) is a large-scale collaborative research-and-development platform dedicated to the synthesis of new and improved materials for energy conversion and storage applications.

Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin Aerial view of Lise-Meitner-Campus in Berlin-Wannsee

It consists of state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment to be added to existing facilities that are distributed over the six participating Helmholtz Centres:

• Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
• Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
• Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB)
• Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR)
• Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon (HZH) (former Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht für Material- und Küstenforschung)
• Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)

HEMF serves the wider scientific community and is operated as an international user facility for both academic and industrial partners. The scientific focus of the foundry is on materials and applications in the field of solar cells, solar fuels, fuel cells, batteries, thermoelectrics and thermochemistry, with catalysis as an overarching theme that is important to all these topics.

Schematic outline of the Helmholtz Energy Materials Foundry (HEMF)

Each participating Helmholtz Centre offers facilities that optimally enhance its existing scientific infrastructure, and provides the best match to its established expertise. Moreover, JointLabs with academic partners, lab@location developments with industry partners and cooperation with the Max Planck Society will further enhance the HEMF capacities.

The HEMF platform strengthens the Helmholtz Association’s competence in materials synthesis, and complements the existing HEMCP (Helmholtz Energy Materials Characterization Platform) infrastructure which has a strong focus on materials characterization.