Last week, Gustav attended the conference celebrating 40 years of plant safety in North Rhine-Westphalia. He had the opportunity to discuss how materials research contributes to battery safety and what this means for process safety.

Gustav also briefly introduced the research of his colleagues at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) and within the Berlin Battery Lab.

Many thanks to LANUK NRW for organizing such a great event!

This week, Andrea attended the SALSA Make & Measure conference in Berlin. Andrea had the opportunity to present his poster, “Exploring Sodiophilic Interface Modifications in NASICON Electrolytes for Sodium Batteries”.

Many thanks to SALSA for organizing such a great event!

What a fantastic three days at the Sodium Battery Symposium in Berlin! A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and made these three days so inspiring and successful.

With 290 participants, 30 invited speakers, 100 posters, 5 exhibitors, and 9 outstanding poster award winners, the symposium brought together a vibrant community passionate about the future of sodium-ion batteries.

Three days filled with exciting research, inspiring discussions, new ideas, and valuable networking - all driven by one shared vision:

Making Na-ion batteries an important part of the energy transition.

The countdown is on: just one more weekend until the 7th Sodium Battery Symposium begins!
From September 14–16, 2026, the international sodium-ion battery community will gather in Berlin:
🔹 260 participants
🔹 30 international presentations
🔹 100 posters
🔹 3 days of scientific and technological innovation
We are looking forward to inspiring discussions, new collaborations, and valuable insights into the future of sustainable energy storage.

This week, Gustav presented our recent work at the Swiss Battery Days in Zürich. The high-quality talks, the impressive posters and the discussions with fellow researchers made for a truly enjoyable and insightful event.

Many thanks to Empa for organizing such a great event!

We had a great time visiting the Bundestag as a group! Guided by a political expert, we got the chance to explore the building, learn about its fascinating history, and gain a better understanding of how German politics works.

This week, Andrea attended the International Conference on Solid State Ionics in Singapore. He had the opportunity to present his poster, “NASICON Electrolytes for Room-Temperature Sodium Batteries: Relating Synthesis Route to Transport Properties and Interface Stability” and to discuss our research with researchers worldwide.

Today, our work on "Spectroscopic Investigation of Polysulfide Redox Evolution in Catholyte Solutions for Potassium-Sulfur Batteries" has been published in Advanced Functional Materials (Wiley).

Link: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.76067

Congratulations to Chiara!

We are very happy that Suchita joined the group as postdoctoral researcher. She earned her Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Indore and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University (USA). Suchita's expertise includes materials synthesis and advanced electrochemical and structural characterization. Welcome, Suchita!

We are very happy that Jonas, Alicia and Malte joined the group as undergraduate students. They are currently pursuing their bachelor’s degrees in chemistry at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Welcome, Jonas, Alicia and Malte!

This week, Andrea presented his research at the SALSA conference as part of his fellowship program “Make and Measure.” He shared his research on the interface between NASICON and Na–K alloy. His work aims to better understand potassium intercalation and the underlying degradation mechanisms, with the goal of improving cell stability.

Many thanks to SALSA for organizing such a great event!

Congratulations to Johannes on his research being featured on the cover of Advanced Functional Materials in January! The cover depicts a false-color image of heat-treated carbon foam after contact with a sodium–potassium alloy.

https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.73774

Last week, Gustav and Andrea attended the Batterieforum Deutschland in Berlin. Andrea had the opportunity to present his poster, “NASICON Electrolytes for Room-Temperature Sodium-Sulfur Batteries: from Material Synthesis to Cell Testing” and to discuss our research with researchers worldwide.

We are very happy that Nicholas joined the group as a doctoral student. He earned his M.Eng. (Chemical) and B.Sc.(Chemical Systems) from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Nicholas’s expertise includes process safety and the use of process modelling and simulation to improve safety outcomes. Welcome, Nicholas!

Today, our work on "Water-in-Salt Electrolytes Embedded in Polyacrylamide Hydrogels: A First Step toward Deformable Sodium-Ion Batteries" has been published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.5c03031

Congratulations to Phillip!

We are very happy that Fariza joined the group as a postdoctoral researcher. She earned a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. degree in Physics in Kazakhstan before completing her PhD in Materials Science in KTU,  Lithuania. Fariza's expertise includes materials synthesis, thin-film deposition, and advanced electrochemical and structural characterization. Welcome, Fariza!

Last week, Maria participated in the final of the Forum Junge Spitzenforschung competition, where she presented the atmospheric water harvesting research that she and Gustav are conducting. Our team earned fourth place, congratulations to both of you! Many thanks to Humboldt Innovations for hosting the event and for connecting us with industry partners.

This week, Gustav attended the 12th Lithium-Sulfur Workshop in Dresden. At the workshop, he had the opportunity to present our recent work on potassium-sulfur batteries by Chiara and to learn many new things both from academia and industry about sulfur-based batteries. Thanks to Fraunhofer IWS for organizing this nice event!

Robert did a great job in defending his Bachelor's thesis about “Sustainable alkali-metal batteries based on abundantly available sulfur, sodium and potassium". Congratulations, Robert, for the successful defense, and thank you for your contributions to the lab in the past months!

Today, our work on "Wetting Interactions Between Porous Carbon Hosts and Liquid Sodium-Potassium Alloys Toward Their Use in Negative Electrodes of Alkali-Metal Batteries" has been published in Advanced Functional Materials (Wiley).

Link: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202523169

Congratulations to Johannes!