The future scalability of electrochemical technologies, from green hydrogen production to next-generation batteries, hinges on urgent breakthroughs in critical raw material (CRM) use reduction and ultimately substitution (e.g. given expected technology deployment levels). Current systems often depend on scarce elements and or elements that may with time become critical (e.g. Platinum Group Metals, rare earths, etc.), creating bottlenecks that threaten both technological advancement and global supply security.
Overcoming these constraints demands radical rethinking that leads to rapid advances in improved materials utilisation and potential substitution without compromising performance. This symposium convenes leading experts at the frontier of these efforts, exploring disruptive approaches to address CRM challenges in the electrochemical devices needed in the energy transition and bring forward the generations of resilient, high-performance electrochemical technologies (free from CRM dependency).
- CRMs in Hydrogen Production
- CRMS in Battery Technology
- CRMs in Fuel Cells
- Accelerated Discovery Approaches
- Safe & Sustainable by Design Aspects
Dr. Fellinger is Head of the Division 3.6 Electrochemical Energy Materials at the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM). He is a nanostructure and molecular scientist by training (diploma at University of Kassel, DE), who received his PhD in colloid chemistry (with summa cum laude) at the University of Potsdam/DE under the direct supervision of Prof. Markus Antonietti in 2011. After a short postdoctoral stays at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Prof. Ichiro Yamanaka) he was a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm (2012-2017). In 2016/17 he was an awarded Researcher-in-Residence at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Gothenburg (Prof. Anders Palmqvist), followed by one term as W2-substitute professor for inorganic chemistry at the University of Applied Science Zittau/Görlitz. Afterwards until 2020 he joined Prof. Hubert Gasteiger´s Chair for Technical Electrochemistry (Technical University Munich) with a fuel cell project. In 2020 Dr. Fellinger´s group joined the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin. Dr. Fellinger received the Donald-Ulrich Award 2017 of the International Sol-Gel Society and the Ernst-Haage Award for Chemistry of the Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion. His research interests are the synthetic chemistry of novel materials and their usage in energy-related applications with a focus on different carbon-based materials like nitrogen-doped carbons, M-N-C catalysts or hard carbon anodes. He has published ~60 articles in peer-reviewed journals (>6000 citations, H-index: 41).
Montse Casas-Cabanas is the scientific coordinator of the Electrochemical Energy Storage Area and group leader of the Advanced Electrode Materials group at CIC energiGUNE. Her research interests focus on the design of battery materials and the understanding of phenomena that occur in energy storage devices through a multidisciplinary approach, with a focus in crystal chemistry.
She is also author of >75 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and has been PI of several national and european projects. She has co-authored the FAULTS software for the refinement of X-ray data of crystalline structures with planar defects. She is also actively involved in the MESC+ Erasmus Mundus master course and has recently received the 2021 Young Researcher award ("Group Leader" category) from the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry.
Paul PoodtÖzlem Özcan Sandikcioglu, Head of Division, Material and Surface Technologies, Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)
Özlem has an academic background in electrochemistry and material science. She focusses on the application of electrochemical methods for synthesis and characterisation of functional materials for corrosion protection and green electrocatalysis. Her research revolves mainly around metals and alloys, in all forms, as bulk materials, thin films and nanoparticles. A special focus of her research are multi-principal element alloys (MPEAs) which break from the conventional alloy concepts by offering a near infinite compositional space to explore for application-tailored properties. To tackle this complex design challenge, she relies on Material Acceleration Platforms (MAPs) and AI-guided autonomous material discovery. Özlem is also coordinating the MAP-activities at the Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing (BAM).