News
Double Celebration: SALSA Fellowship Success
Goutham has been awarded his second SALSA fellowship to continue his work on solid-state batteries. He’ll be using in-situ Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS) to take a closer look at how these batteries work in real-time.
At the same meeting, Jinwei officially joined the group as our newest SALSA fellow.
We’re incredibly proud to have two fellows representing our team in the SALSA community. Huge congratulations to both Goutham and Jinwei!
Winni Schwedland presenting at the annual meeting of the German Bunsen Society
Winni Schwedland presented new insights towards understanding the varying results reported in pulsed-current charging literature at the Bunsen-Tagung 2026 in Dresden.
Philipp Adelhelm joins Editorial Advisory Board of Batteries & Supercaps
Congratulations to Prof. Philipp Adelhelm on his new role as Editorial Advisory Board Chair for the journal Batteries & Supercaps! Published by Chemistry Europe, the journal is a key hub for the latest in battery and supercapacitor technology.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7440734172547137537/
Visit by the Evangelisches Studienwerk
We were delighted to welcome a group of students from the Evangelisches Studienwerk led by Isabella Stephens to our research labs. The visit sparked discussions on how battery research and energy storage technologies can contribute to a more sustainable future. It was a pleasure to share insights into our work and exchange ideas with such a curious and motivated group of young scholars.
Visit of Prof. Dorthe Ravensbaek, Aarhus University, Denmark
Prof. Ravensbaek visited our lab through a cooperation by Jia Guo. Thanks for giving an inspiring lecture on „Is it out of order? – Unravelling structural disorder in battery electrodes“
Organization of a joint collaborative workshop between PTB, HZB, and HU Berlin
We were delighted to organize a collaborative workshop bringing together PTB, HZB, and HU Berlin at CSMB, HU Berlin. The event featured 12 talks and a round-table discussion, fostering active exchange. We look forward to the next meeting.
Undergraduate Information Event
We were happy to participate in the Undergraduate Information Event on campus. Our team engaged in many interesting conversations with prospective students and shared insights into our research and group activities. We look forward to welcoming new members to our group in the near future.
Visit by japanese young battery experts
On January 23, we welcomed a group of young battery experts from Japan for scientific discussions and laboratory visits as part of our Berlin Battery Lab activities. The visit was organized by the Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB), which runs an annual exchange program for young professionals from Japan and Germany. This year’s exchange focused on battery research, and Jan-Philipp was among the German young scientists who visited Japan. Many thanks to Mr. Denninger and the JDZB for making this exchange possible.
Jan-Philipp Hoffknecht joins German Delegation for Junior Expert Exchange Program in Japan
In November, Jan-Philipp Hoffknecht was selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan to participate in the Junior Expert Exchange Program 2025. As one of six outstanding early-career battery researchers from Germany, he joined a one-week delegation to Japan, engaging with leading academic institutions, industry partners, and government stakeholders.
The program included visits to Kyoto University (Prof. Abe), University of Tokyo (Prof. Yamada), the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, as well as major industrial and research organizations such as HORIBA, Panasonic Energy, the Battery Association for Supply Chain, and Planet Energy & Solutions. This invitation provided a unique opportunity to gain first-hand insight into Japan’s advanced battery research ecosystem.
Congratulations also to the other participants: Elif Candan (RWTH Aachen), Lucas Balzat (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research), Marie-Christin Röpert (Henkel), Noah Keim (KIT), and Rico Klink (AUDI AG).
Visit by Ass. Prof. Juhyeon Ahn - University of Wyoming
We were glad to host Juhyeon Ahn from the University of Wyoming (USA) as a guest speaker. She gave an engaging talk on „Earth-Abundant Disordered Rocksalt Cathodes for High-Energy Lithium-Ion Batteries.“
Visit of Prof. Nurzhan Nurgalilyev and colleagues from Kazakhstan
It was nice to welcome Prof. Nurgaliyev and his colleagues from Shakarim University as visitors to our group.
Panel Discussion on the Energy Transition at the 2025 SILBERSALZ Science & Media Festival
The SILBERSALZ Festival in Halle is Germany’s largest event connecting science and media, attracting over 45,000 visitors in 2025. As part of the festival, Prof. Adelhelm joined a panel discussion at the Leopoldina – National Academy of Sciences, exploring the pivotal roles of hydrogen, batteries, and fusion energy in driving the global energy transition.
We participate in the TwinBat International Workshop in Istanbul
We went to Istanbul to participate in the International Workshop organized by Gebze Teknik Universitesi (Prof. Rezan Demir-Cakan and her team) on Oct. 20 and 21. We contributed 3 oral talks. Prof. Philipp Adelhelm also shared his opinions on bridging the gap: academia-industry synergy as a panelist.
Dr. Yanan Sun participated in the 10th ICNaB in Sydney
Yanan attended the 10th International Conference on Sodium Batteries (ICNaB) 2025 in Sydney (Oct 6-10, 2025) and gave an invited talk on an overview of our recent research results.
„100 Leading Minds of Berlin Science 2025“ (Tagesspiegel)
The Tagesspiegel reports on 100 leading minds of Berlin science, with Philipp Adelhelm in the category “chemistry”.
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/themen/die-100-wichtigsten-kopfe-der-berliner-wissenschaft-2025
© Tagesspiegel
Winni wins the Platinum Poster Prize at the International Battery Workshop 2025
We had the pleasure to host the International Battery Workshop 2025 supported by Aspire and TwinBat. In addition to excellent talks from all participants, Winni Schwedland won the Platinum Poster Prize for his work on investigating the effects of pulsed current charging on sodium-ion batteries.
Poster Prize at the Faraday Institution Conference 2025 for Jan-Philipp
Dr. Jan-Philipp Hoffknecht attended the Faraday Institution Conference 2025 in Warwick, UK. His „highly engaging“ poster presentation on operando methods for sodium-sulfur solid-state batteries was awarded with the Poster Prize for „Communication & Audience Engagement“. Congratulations!
We joined the ISE Conference in Mainz, 7–12 September
We were thrilled to take part in the 76th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry in Mainz from 7–12 September! During the conference, our team gave 5 presentations and presented 10 posters, showcasing our latest research and discoveries. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with colleagues, exchange ideas, and explore new opportunities for collaboration.
Congratulations Jonathan on Winning the Poster Prize at SBS-6!
Annica, Dominik and Jonathan attended the SBS-6 at Dresden in September 2025. In addition to excellent talks from Annica and Dominik, Jonathan won the Poster prize for his work on the investigations on sodium plating in layered oxide pouch cells with the approach to mitigate this issue through novel electrolyte additives.
Welcome to Oliver Thomas from Oxford
Through an exchange supported by the Flexible Fund from Humboldt University, we had the pleasure of hosting PhD student Oliver Thomas from the group of Prof. Robert House at Oxford University in our lab, where he worked on layered oxides with a focus on oxygen redox.
Dr. Wei He joins the group
We are happy to have Wei as a new postdoc in our group. Wei joins the lab in June 2025 and will work on all-solid-state sodium-sulfur batteries supported by NaSeFest project. We look forward to working with him and achieving exciting progress together.
Research exchange with Prof. Robert House from University of Oxford
With the support of the Flexible Fund from Humboldt University, a research exchange is taking place between PhD student Oliver Thomas (OU) and Dr. Dominik Stepien (HU) in collaboration with Associate Professor Robert House, focused on developing sodium layered oxides for cathode materials.
Guest researcher Prof. Palaniselvam
Former group member Palani, now Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Chennai), is ending his 3 months research stay. He was visiting the group through a fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. It was great having you here again!
Work:Hier Career Workshop — A Collaborative Initiative
Vinita attended Work:Hier, a six-month career development program initiated by WISTA Management and Humboldt‑Universität zu Berlin in collaboration with Agentur für Arbeit Berlin‑Süd, Berlin‑Partner, and Helmholtz‑Zentrum Berlin, along with BAM. The series of interactive workshops covered career mindset, legal guidance, job search strategies, and networking for international STEM researchers, and concluded with a participation certificate.
"Tag der Chemie - Chemistry Day" – Poster prize for Zeynep!
Zeynep Erdöl received a poster prize on the „Tag der Chemie“ for her poster on „Advancing Na-ion Batteries through Electrode Doping and Optimized Electrolytes“. Congratulations!
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting
Dr. Yanan Sun and Dr. Archana Kumar attended the 74th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (Chemistry) 2025 in Lindau. They had the great opportunity to communicate with over 30 Nobel Laureates and 600 young scientists. They were especially enthralled by their encounter with Nobel Laureates Sir Prof. Stanley Whittingham and Prof. Akira Yoshino. In addition to lecture sessions, they joined open exchange sessions with different laureates and attended science lunches and dinners as well as science walk with the laureates. They concluded the event by wearing traditional attire representative of their culture.
Annual Meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation organised the Annual Meeting on 25 and 26 June. As a part of the meeting, fellows including Archana and Stefano attended the meeting with the Federal President Mr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Bellevue Palace where he gave a speech and later took pictures with the fellows while discussing on their area of research.
SEED Finals – Celebrating the end of the ERC SEED project
5 years of explorative research on solvent co-intercalation with another highlight publication soon oline. Thanks to all SEED members and not to forget the former ones: Gustav and Ines!
Congratulations to Goutham, a new SALSA fellow in the house!
Goutham will be working on „Operando X-ray spectroscopy of Sulfide-based Cathodes for Solid-State Lithium-Ion Batteries“ in collaboration with Dr. Elmar Kataev from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and Dr. Wanli Yang from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ALS in the USA.
A new Dr. – Francesco defended
Francesco Piccolo defended his PhD thesis on the use of sulfur and sulfides in solid-state batteries. Congratulations for this big career step and thanks for a superb after-party!!
Visit from Dr. Sai Patnaik, IMEC, Belgium
Former group member and AvH fellow Sai visited our group and presented his research on the preparation of thin Lithium electrodes for high energy batteries. It was great to have him back and of course it ended with a dinner.
Visit Amiens and first hands-on training in TwinBat project
Winni, Dominik and Yanan visited LCRS in Amiens, took a lab tour and discussed with Da Huo and Raphael Janot. Then they attended the first hands-on training in the TwinBat project. The hands-on training was organized by our TwinBat partners CNRS and TIAMAT by Mathieu and John in Amiens.
Kick-Off meeting for joint US NSF-DFG project INCUBATOR
This project includes project partners from HU Berlin (Katherine Mazzio (coordinator) and Philipp Adelhelm), Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (Elmar Kataev and Marcus Bär), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Wanli Yang), and University of California, Santa Cruz (Jinghua Guo and Honghe Ding). The focus is on operando X-Ray spectroscopies for solid-state batteries. The kick-off meeting took place at HZB and on-line.
Matsus Spring 2025 in Sevilla-Talk and Posters
Youhyun, Moritz and Guillermo attended MATSUS Spring 2025 conference with one talk and two posters. Guillermo and Youhyun presented results on the co-intercalation reaction for batteries. Mortiz won a poster prize for his contribution on Anode-free sodium metal batteries.
Kick-Off of SIB:DE – the largest national project on Na-ion batteries
The group is part of SIB:DE, Germany’s largest project for developing Na-ion batteries. Members include 21 partners including BASF as coordinator.
The Kick-Off took place at BASF in Ludwigshafen.
© Philipp Adelhelm
Visitors from Turkey and France
In the Twinbat project, the EU not only supports scientific cooperation, but also the exchange of administrative staff. We welcomed guests of our project partners from Turkey (Istanbul) and France (Amiens) to a workshop in Berlin.
Batterieforum 2025 in Berlin
Plenty of posters from the group on this years Batterieforum in Berlin, a whole session on “Na-ion batteries” and a pitch of Jonas on gas analysis of batteries.
Surprise visit from Santosha Lingamurthy
Former group member Santosha received his PhD in 2021 and is now working for Volkswagen on EV batteries.
Visit by Prof. Yaxiang Lu – Institute of Physics, Bejing
Prof. Yaxiang Lu from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was visiting our lab as part of her stay at the IOP-HU Early Career Researcher Conference on Energising Materials.
© Ralf Schuster, BTU CS
ReLIB project receives funding from "Innovationskorridor Berlin – Cottbus"
The „Innovationskorridor Berlin – Cottbus“ is a joint initiative of BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, to strengthen the cooperation between the two universities and regions. We are happy to announce that we have been awarded one of the four seed funds for our joined project ReLIB on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries. This will support our collaboration with the groups of Jörg Acker (BTU), Jan Ingo Flege (BTU), Olaf Klepel (BTU) and Arnd Garsuch (BTU/BASF). We would like to thank the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin for their support and all the other participants for the great day in Cottbus.
Official press announcements:
https://www.hu-berlin.de/de/pr/nachrichten/november-2024/nr-241128-2
https://www.b-tu.de/news/artikel/27917-innovationskorridor-berlin-cottbus-btu-cottbus-senftenberg-und-hu-berlin-intensivieren-zusammenarbeit
Cooperation with LRCS Amiens – Recycling of battery materials
The group is cooperating with Da Huo (main PI) and Raphael Janot from LRCS on the use of graphite from end-of-life Li-ion batteries. The project is conducted by the PhD student Aleena Gigi who will stay in our lab for research visits.
© Philipp Adelhelm
Fischer-Nernst-Award 2024
Congratulations to Winni Schwedland, who was honored with the Fischer-Nernst-Award for the best Master’s Thesis in the Institut of Chemistry of Humboldt University Berlin with the title „Characterization of the Kinetic Properties of Glyme-Based Electrolytes for Sodium-Ion Co-Intercalation in Graphite via Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy“.
Welcome back, Giorgia!
We are happy to have Giorgia Greco back in the group for a short research stay. Giorgia received a WINS fellowship this year to work on a project with Katherine Mazzio on EXAFS characterization of sodium-ion batteries. Welcome back, Giorgia!
© Philipp Adelhelm
Attendance at the Solid State Batteries VI conference in Frankfurt
Several members of the group attended the International Bunsen Discussion Meeting on „Solid-State Batteries VI – From Fundamentals to Application“ on November 13 – 15, 2024 in Frankfurt, Germany. We enjoyed connecting with influential people in the field and listening to many interesting talks!
Best Oral Presentation Award at ICNaB2024
Congratulations to Yanan Sun, who was awarded the Best Oral Presentation Award at the 9th International Conference on Sodium Batteries – ICNaB2024, Richland, U.S. Yanan would like to thank the SALSA (School of Analytical Sciences Adlershof) for the financial support.
© Yanan Sun
© Philipp Adelhelm
“Start of TwinBat project funded by the EU” – Kick-Off in Istanbul
The group is part of a European project to tighten cooperations with Turkiye.
We will cooperate over the next three years on Na-ion batteries with Gebze Technical University Istanbul (Rezan Demir-Cakan), LRCS-Amiens and Tiamat. The project focusses on staff training & exchange and Na-ion battery development.
Cooperation with Tokyo University of Science – Welcome Yuki!
Yuki is a visiting PhD student from the lab of Prof. Komaba (Tokyo University of Science). He will work on the characterization of anodes (hard carbon, graphite and Si) for Alkali-ion batteries.
© Hui Wang
© Stefan Klenke
Sodium Battery Symposium (SBS-5)
Thank you for a wonderful Sodium Battery Symposium (SBS-5) in Berlin! 31 talks, 90 posters, 10 exhibitors and 330 attendees from academia and industry over 3 fantastic days.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this event and the many helping hands. Go Sodium!
“Electrochemistry 2024 in Braunschweig” – Talks and posters
Vinita, Archana, Knut, Youhyun, Guillermo and Philipp attended this year’s “Electrochemistry” conference in Braunschweig with two talks and four posters!
Knut presented results from his PhD thesis on characterizing co-intercalation reactions with impedance spectroscopy and other methods. Well done! Thanks to Vinita, Archana, Knut, Youhyun & Guillermo
Three Flash Talk Awards at SALSA Make and Measure
Congratulations to Youhyun Son, Guillermo Alvarez and Jonas Geisler, who were awarded prices for their Flash presentations at this year’s SALSA Make and Measure. We would also like to thank the SALSA team for the great conference. Further information can be found here.
Cooperation with Tokyo University of Science – Welcome Kodai!
Kodai is a visiting student from the lab of Prof. Komaba (Tokyo University of Science). He will work on the characterization of layered oxides for Alkali-ion batteries.
© Hui Wang
Firmenlauf Adlershof 2024
Once again this year, the Adelhelm Group entered a team in the annual Adlershof Firmenstaffel. Following last year’s success, where the team exceeded their own expectations, this year’s participants pushed themselves even further, driven by mutual support and motivation.
Master thesis defended!
Congratulations to Goutham who defended his master thesis on the use of metal sulfides in solid-state batteries!
Visit of Prof. Bhattacharyya
We were delighted to welcome Prof. Aninda Bhattacharyya from the Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru as a guest in our group. Thanks for a great talk on alternative battery concepts.
Ane Gondra- summer student
We are pleased to welcome Ane Gondra from the MESC+ (Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion) master’s programme. She joins us this summer thanks to an Erasmus+ Traineeship scholarship.
© Ane Gondra
SSI24 Mid-Career Award
Philipp Adelhelm receives Mid-Career Award from the International Society of Solid State Ionics on the 2024 London conference for his contribution on developing new battery electrode materials.