The large-scale project EMIL (Energy Materials In-situ Laboratory Berlin) will create new opportunities for researching energy materials by the beginning of 2015
Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin and the Max Planck Society are going to build a new, dedicated X-ray beamline together at the synchrotron source BESSY II, which will be used for analysing materials for renewable energy generation. The new large-scale project has been dubbed EMIL (a common name in Berlin, but which also stands for Energy Materials In-situ Laboratory Berlin) and includes, among other things, the major project already announced under the name of SISSY (Solar Energy Materials In-Situ Spectroscopy at the Synchrotron). The assessment of EMIL in September 2011, by an external committee of experts engaged by the scientific advisory board, went very well and the experts endorsed the EMIL project "enthusiastically". The supervisory board of HZB will give the go-ahead for construction of EMIL in two months.
HZB project manager Dr. Klaus Lips is very satisfied with the results: "In the planned laboratory, we will combine material production with ultra-precise analysis of visible properties better than anywhere else in the world, without interruption of the vacuum needed for synthesis, which will allow us to develop better thin-film solar cells and energy stores."
EMIL will be a worldwide unique laboratory, built and operated at BESSY II, where materials for photovoltaics and photocatalytic processes can be studied by X-ray analysis. Three experimental stations will be built, where researchers will have soft and hard X-rays at their disposal (60 eV–10 keV).
The measuring station SISSY will be available for studying photovoltaic materials at EMIL. Another measuring station, CAT@EMIL, will be in the same laboratory for researching catalysts, and is being financed and built by the Max Planck Society. Both measuring stations are primarily intended for in-house research, while one third of the measurement time will be made available for external users from universities and industry.
The third measuring station planned in the EMIL project (60to6), which has received no funding as yet, would be primarily dedicated for external users. Since the beamline offers unique conditions for studying materials with its excellent beam characteristics, establishing 60to6@EMIL will make EMIL even more attractive to external researchers. Users shall have up to 80 percent of the measurement time available at 60to6.
Building EMIL, with its analytical tools SISSY and CAT, requires 18 million euros in funding. Following a positive vote from the supervisory board, HZB will invest 6 million euros in EMIL and the Max Planck Society will participate with a further 6.7 million euros. The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) is funding construction of the SISSY station with 5.7 million euros from the "Photovoltaics" innovation alliance.
"We could not have imagined that EMIL would be realized together with the Max Planck Society, and the best analytical conditions created for researchers worldwide, had the two centres not merged in 2009. The new EMIL project makes the benefits of the merger especially clear," says Dr. Markus Sauerborn, head of the policy unit "Strategy and Programs".
Constructing EMIL will require extensive structural measures at BESSY II, and we will keep you up to date on these.
Update: The supervisory board has given his positive vote for realising the EMIL project in December 2011.
- Battery research with the HZB X-ray microscopeNew cathode materials are being developed to further increase the capacity of lithium batteries. Multilayer lithium-rich transition metal oxides (LRTMOs) offer particularly high energy density. However, their capacity decreases with each charging cycle due to structural and chemical changes. Using X-ray methods at BESSY II, teams from several Chinese research institutions have now investigated these changes for the first time with highest precision: at the unique X-ray microscope, they were able to observe morphological and structural developments on the nanometre scale and also clarify chemical changes.
- BESSY II: New procedure for better thermoplasticsBio-based thermoplastics are produced from renewable organic materials and can be recycled after use. Their resilience can be improved by blending bio-based thermoplastics with other thermoplastics. However, the interface between the materials in these blends sometimes requires enhancement to achieve optimal properties. A team from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands has now investigated at BESSY II how a new process enables thermoplastic blends with a high interfacial strength to be made from two base materials: Images taken at the new nano station of the IRIS beamline showed that nanocrystalline layers form during the process, which increase material performance.
- Hydrogen: Breakthrough in alkaline membrane electrolysersA team from the Technical University of Berlin, HZB, IMTEK (University of Freiburg) and Siemens Energy has developed a highly efficient alkaline membrane electrolyser that approaches the performance of established PEM electrolysers. What makes this achievement remarkable is the use of inexpensive nickel compounds for the anode catalyst, replacing costly and rare iridium. At BESSY II, the team was able to elucidate the catalytic processes in detail using operando measurements, and a theory team (USA, Singapore) provided a consistent molecular description. In Freiburg, prototype cells were built using a new coating process and tested in operation. The results have been published in the prestigious journal Nature Catalysis.