Understanding material behavior under realistic operating conditions is essential for advancing sustainable energy technologies. This symposium will focus on recent advances in lab-based in situ and operando characterization techniques applied to energy conversion systems spanning across batteries, solar cells, and (photo)electrochemical devices. While relying on shared fundamental processes – governed by material composition, interfaces, defects, and transport of charged particles – these systems are often studied using only discipline-specific methods. By bringing together researchers from diverse fields within energy conversion, this symposium aims to promote and facilitate cross-disciplinary exchange and to identify shared challenges and innovative solutions. Emphasis will be placed on emerging lab-based techniques that probe composition, structure, optoelectronic properties, and ionic/electronic transport, where studies offering spatial and temporal resolution are particularly encouraged. These studies are crucial for understanding reaction mechanisms and degradation within complex conversion processes, ultimately enabling the rational design of more efficient and durable energy materials.
- Energy conversion materials in artificial photosynthesis, solar cells, and batteries
- Time-resolved and spatially resolved measurements of reaction mechanisms
- Correlating structure, composition, and transport properties in real time
- Degradation mechanisms and failure analysis in energy devices
- Cross-platform techniques for multiscale analysis
- Method development and instrument integration for lab-based operando studies
Verena Streibel studied Materials Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt (2007-2013). She completed her doctoral studies at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, focusing on in situ X-ray spectroscopy during electrochemical water splitting (2016). For her postdoctoral studies, she joined the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis at Stanford University (2018-2020), specializing in density functional theory-based microkinetic modeling of heterogeneous catalysis. In 2021, she joined the Walter Schottky Institute of the technical University of Munich, where she has been leading a BMBF Junior Research Group on artificial photosynthesis since 2024.
Verena's research focuses on surface and interface investigations to elucidate dynamic material changes during (photo)electrochemical processes for energy conversion. To this end, she combines (X-ray) spectroscopy methods under reaction conditions with theoretical modeling. With her research group, she develops thin-film photoelectrode materials and couples them to catalyst systems for solar fuels synthesis.
Dr. Chris Baeumer is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) for Electrochemistry of Nanostructures in the Inorganic Materials Science group at the University of Twente and associate research group leader at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. His research focuses on model electrochemical materials and interfaces with precisely controlled, single-crystalline surfaces, and their operando X-ray characterization to reveal the atomic details of complex oxide electrode materials at the solid/liquid interface. For this work, he was awarded the ERC Starting Grant. Before moving to the University of Twente, he was a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at Stanford University and RWTH Aachen University.
Emiliano is Professor of Experimental Physics and Energy Conversion at the Faculty of Physics, LMU Munich, where he leads the Nanomaterials for Energy group. He is also a visiting researcher at Imperial College London, UK, and Ewha Womans University, South Korea. Emiliano is Associate Editor at ACS Catalysis. His research bridges chemistry and physics, focusing on nanomaterials and techniques for energy conversion and sustainability. He has published over 180 scientific articles, co-founded two spin-offs, holds four patents, and co-edited the first book on Plasmonic Catalysis (Wiley, 2021). He is also Associate Researcher at the TUM Catalysis Research Center, member of the Solar Batteries Center (TUM-MPI) and CSO at INSyT Solutions.
Associate Professor, Chemistry Department, University of Colorado, Boulder
Adjunct Professor, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
James Durrant is Professor of Photochemistry and Sustainable Energy in the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, following his previous professorial appointments at Imperial College London and the University of Swansea. His research focuses on the use of transient optical spectroscopies to investigate the function of new materials for sustainable energy conversion, including materials for artificial photosynthesis, photocatalysis, solar cells and electrolysis. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2017 and appointed a CBE for services to photochemistry and solar energy research in 2022.
Marco Favaro is the deputy head of the Institute for Solar Fuels at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB), Germany. After his PhD at the University of Padua (Italy) and Technical University of Munich (Germany), concluded in 2014, he spent two years as a Post-doctoral fellow at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis in Berkeley, USA, in the group of Dr. Junko Yano. He moved to Germany in 2017 to join the HZB. Here, his research activity focuses on understanding chemical composition/electronic-structural properties/performance interplay in photoelectrocatalysts by coupling operando multimodal spectroelectrochemical investigations with synchrotron-based in situ/operando spectroscopies.
Yang HuPeter Strasser is the chaired professor of �Electrochemistry for energy conversion and storage� at the Chemical Engineering Division of the Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin. Prior to his appointment, he was Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. Before moving to Houston, Prof. Strasser served as Senior Member of staff at Symyx Technologies, Inc., Santa Clara, USA. In 1999, Prof. Strasser earned his doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry from the �Fritz-Haber-Institute� of the Max-Planck-Society, Berlin, Germany, under the direction of the 2007 Chemistry Nobel Laureate, Professor Gerhard Ertl. In the same year, he was awarded the �Otto-Hahn Research Medal� by the Max-Planck Society. In 1996, Dr. Strasser was visiting scientist with Sony Central Research, Yokohama, Japan. He studied chemistry at Stanford University, the University of Tuebingen, and the University of Pisa, Italy. Professor Strasser is interested in the fundamental Materials Science and Catalysis of electrified liquid solid interfaces, in particular for renewable energy conversion, energy storage, production of fuels and chemicals.
Rob Weatherup is Professor of Energy Materials at the University of Oxford, where his research focuses on understanding the interfacial processes that govern the performance of energy materials and devices, including Li-ion batteries, electrochemical hydrogen production, and carbon dioxide conversion. His group has pioneered operando X-ray characterisation approaches that enable electrochemical and catalytic interfaces to be probed under realistic operating conditions, providing new insights into the mechanisms governing their behaviour.
He obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2013, working with Professor Stephan Hofmann, before holding a Research Fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge (2013–2017), during which he spent two years as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2015–2017). He established his independent research group in 2018 as a Diamond-Manchester Fellow at Diamond Light Source, joined the University of Oxford in 2019, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2024. He is a CAMS-UK Fellow, a Visiting Scientist at Diamond Light Source, and Research Area Lead for Electrochemical Systems within the Royce Institute. His research programme has been supported by an ERC Starting Grant (2020), a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (2021), and, most recently, an ERC Consolidator Grant (2026).