HZB-postdoc Feng Liang becomes associate Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University
Dr. Feng Liang has secured an associate professorship at the Green Hydrogen Innovation Center in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. He will start to build up his research team in June 2025. © HZB
Dr. Feng Liang has joined the HZB Institute Solar Fuels in 2021. Now, he has secured an associate professorship at the Green Hydrogen Innovation Center in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. He will start to build up his research team in June 2025.
Dr. Feng Liang has earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China, in a joint training programme with RWTH Aachen. In October 2021, he joined the Institute Solar Fuels on a Helmholtz-Innovation Pool project. He is developing cutting-edge prototypes for water-splitting devices that can operate at higher than ambient pressures up to 8 bar.
The design of functioning prototypes demands skills from different disciplines, not only device engineering but as well a deep understanding of materials science and electrochemistry. “I learned most of the electrochemistry here from Fatwa Abdi and Roel van de Krol”, Liang says. “They were the best mentors I could ever imagine”.
Feng Liang has secured an associate professorship at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Xi'an Jiaotong University. He will leave HZB after helping his colleagues prepare for the "programme oriented funding" evaluation in May.
“From June 2025, I will start my own group in China, and I'm excited about the prospect of a close partnership with HZB in the future”, he says. Liang will continue his work on prototypes for water splitting. Roel van de Krol, director of the Institute for Solar Fuels, praised Feng Liang's achievement, saying: “It's wonderful to see that his work at HZB has led to an associate professorship; it's a great example of how HZB provides a supportive environment for early-career researchers to develop their careers”.
- Strategisches Positionspapier zur Stärkung der SolarindustrieFrankfurt, 06. März 2025 – Die führenden deutschen Solarforschungseinrichtungen, die Fachabteilung „Photovoltaik Produktionsmittel“ des Industrieverbands VDMA und das Produktionsplanungs-Unternehmen RCT Solutions, haben ein gemeinsames Positionspapier zur Stärkung der deutschen und europäischen Solarindustrie veröffentlicht. Dieses wird nun an die Parteien übermittelt, die nach der Bundestagswahl im Bundestag vertreten sind. Ziel ist es, die vorgeschlagenen Maßnahmen in die Koalitionsverhandlungen einzubringen und damit die Grundlage für eine widerstandsfähige und wettbewerbsfähige Solarindustrie in Deutschland zu schaffen.
- Innovative battery electrode made from tin foamMetal-based electrodes in lithium-ion batteries promise significantly higher capacities than conventional graphite electrodes. Unfortunately, they degrade due to mechanical stress during charging and discharging cycles. A team at HZB has now shown that a highly porous tin foam is much better at absorbing mechanical stress during charging cycles. This makes tin foam an interesting material for lithium batteries.
- Perovskite solar cells: thermal stress is the key to their long term stabilityPerovskite solar cells are highly efficient and low cost in production. However, they still lack stability over the decades under real weather conditions. An international research collaboration led by Prof. Antonio Abate has now published a perspective on this topic in the journal Nature Reviews Materials. They explored the effects of multiple thermal cycles on microstructures and interactions between different layers of perovskite solar cells. They conclude that thermal stress is the decisive factor in the degradation of metal-halide perovskites. Based on this, they derive the most promising strategies to increase the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells.