Triple graduation
Today on Dec. 20th, Verena Perner, Bastian Friesenbichler and Benjamin Kain passed their diploma examinations! Well done! Congratulations to all of them!
Award of the ECRP 2017, 3rd place
A team of researchers of Vienna University of Technology and Graz University of Technology, namely C. Slugovc, received the 3rd place in this year’s ‘Evonik Call for Research Proposals’ competition. Negotiations of translating the proposal into a research collaboration will start in due course.
Major insight into sodium-oxygen batteries
The biggest hurdle facing the development of Na–O2 batteries is parasitic chemistry. In a communication rated as 'very important paper' a team of researchers of ICTM and the Institute of Analytical Chemistry of Graz University of Technology shows evidence that the highly reactive singlet oxygen forms at all stages of cycling, especially at high charging voltages, and that it is the main driver for parasitic reactions. Ways to prevent or eliminate singlet oxygen are therefore needed to improve cyclability.
ICTM will play a crucial role in one of the new lead projects...
...of Graz University of Technolgy. On Oct. 30th 2017 a press release on the two newly funded lead projects was issued. ICTM is looking forward seeing exciting research within the Porous Materials @ Work project.
Minisymposium 
On Oct. 24th 2017, Prof. Renqiang Yang and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Shuguang Wen from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences gave insight into their research. Thank you for providing such interesting lectures in that event!
MSc and PhD exams
M. Gombotz and M. Uitz will have their final exams on 4th of October and 13th of October. While Maria Gombotz worked on the synthesis and characterization of new ion conducting fluorides, Marlena Uitz studied all-solid-state batteries with nanocrystalline lithium borohydride and nanocrystalline rutile. Marlena will continue her career with AVL List (Graz). Wish you all the best.
New publication in Chemical Sciences
Stefan A. Freunberger and colleagues published a perspective article entitled “Mechanism and performance of lithium–oxygen batteries - a perspective” – Congratulations!
Congratulations to Bettina Schafzahl!
Bettina was awarded the Best Lecturer Award of the Danube Vlatava Sava Polymer Meeting which took place from Sept. 5-8, 2017 in Vienna. The title of her presentation was "Porous poly(dicyclopentadiene) based cathode materials for lithium-oxygen batteries".
Two Profs were on short term research stays...
... at ICTM realizing their Olefin Metathesis related projects. While Prof. Sutthasupa (Chiang Mai University, Thailand - right on the picture) was investigating bottle-brush (co-)polymers via ROMP, Prof. Abbas (University of Management and Technology, Pakistan - left side) was dealing with the degradation of natural rubber with acrylates.
Dr. Qamar Abbas gave a guest
lecture...
...on "High energy, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly supercapacitors using aqueous electrolytes" on July 20th 2017 at ICTM. Qamar, who received his PhD from our Faculty in 2011, currently is an Assistant Researcher in the Power Sources Group at Posnan University of Technology.
Dr. Camilla Evangelisti from ZSW in Ulm...
...has been on a short term research stay at our Institute. The ZSW and the Gollas Group both work on zinc-air batteries and have a loose collaboration on improving the behaviour of the zinc electrode.
New paper published in Advanced Energy Materials
A study on the “Mechanism of Lithium Metal Penetration through Inorganic Solid Electrolytes” is published by Daniel Rettenwander and his former colleagues from MIT.
For further reading see the MIT news!
Comment in Nature Energy
On June 6th 2017, Stefan A. Freunberger published a comment on "True performance metrics in beyond-intercalation batteries" in Nature Energy. The contribution recommends standards for reporting experimental parameters in beyond-intercalation batteries.
Guest lecture by Miriam M. Unterlass...
...entitled "Hydrothermal synthesis of advanced organic materials" was held on May 18th 2017 at ICTM. We learned about exiting new synthetic possibilities. Thanks to Dr. Unterlass for sharing her reseach with us.
Christina Wappl got PhD... 
...on May 12th, 2017. Sincere congratulations, well done! It was an adventurous and successful time for you. We hope you enjoyed it! ICTM will miss you and wishes you all the best in your new job!
A Mini-Symposium on Supercritical CO2 Technology...
...was held on May 10th at ICTM. Many thanks to Prof. Knez and Prof. Novak for their lectures.
Hotchpotch or rich diversity?
Bernhard Gollas is the guest editor of a virtual issue "Advances in Electrochemistry" in the open access journal ChemistryOpen of WILEY-VCH. Up to now, 7 papers have been published in this issue, including one authored by his group together with collaborators from Southampton University. In his editorial Bernhard covers much ground to highlight the heterogeneous contributions ;-) but here you can see for yourself...
Prof. Roger A. De Souza gave a guest lecture
On May 2nd 2017 Roger A. De Souza gave a guest lecture on "Much ado about nothings: the behaviour of oxygen vacancies in SrTiO3 Materials". - ICTM enjoyed the instructive and interesting talk!
Special issue on solution based hybrid-solar cells
Gregor Trimmel together with Tsukasa Yoshida (Yamagata University, Japan), Matthew S. White (University of Vermont, USA) and Philipp Stadler (University of Linz, Austria) issued a special issue of Monatshefte für Chemie on “Solution-based emerging hybrid solar cells”. The issue includes several contributions from ICTM. First, Höfler et al. delivered an extensive review on the progress in lead-free perovskites for photovoltaics. Second, the synthesis of a conjugated, low bandgap alternating copolymer with pyrrolopyridazinedione as electron poor and benzodithiophene as electron rich monomers and the its use in fullerene and hybrid solar cells is reported by Knall and co-workers. A third contribution by Dunst et al. describes the photovoltaic properties of quinacridone and quinacridone derivatives in homojunction solar cells.
Appointment for Stefan Freunberger
Stefan A. Freunberger became member of the young academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences! Sincere congratulations for this achievement.
Nature Energy paper published
A team of researchers headed by Stefan A. Freunberger published their latest results in a Nature Energy paper entitled "Singlet oxygen generation as a major cause for parasitic reactions during cycling of aprotic lithium-oxygen batteries" Congratulations for this great achievment! For further information see the press release of Graz University of Technology.
Two new PhDs!
Today on Feb. 28th, 2017 (Fat Tuesday) Bernhard Stanje and Manuel Hollauf became PhD! Congratulations to both of them!
Josef Krainer-Förderungspreis goes to Dr. Preishuber-Pflügl
Dr. Florian Preishuber-Pflügl will be awarded with one out of two Josef Krainer-prizes promoting technical sciences on March 16th 2017 at the "Aula der alten Universität Graz". Sincere congratulations Florian!
Publication on setting the stage for oxa-Michael addition polymerization
On Feb. 16th, 2017 ICTM's Simone Strasser, Christina Wappl and Christian Slugovc published a paper on the nucleophile mediated oxa-Michael reaction for the addition polymerization of alcohols and divinyl sulfone.
Elisabeth Domian passed her diploma examination
On Jan. 27th, 2017 Elisabeth Domian defended her Master-thesis entitled "Synthesis and Characterization of the NiCo2O4 Spinel as Bifunctional Oxygen Catalyst for the Zinc-Air Redox Flow Battery" with success. ICTM congratulates!
Prestigious award for Julia Langer
On Jan. 13th, 2017 Julia Langer has been awarded the “Förderungspreis des Landes Steiermark 2016“ for her basic research work entitled “An Unexpected Pathway: 6Li-Exchange NMR Spectroscopy Points to Vacancy-Driven Out-of-Plane Li-Ion Hopping in Crystalline Li2SnO3”.
ICTM is very proud of this achievement – congratulations Dr. Langer!
Double graduation party
On Jan. 10th, David Reishofer passed his Rigorosum and Martin Philipp his diploma examination. Congratulations!
Job opportunity for a Postdoc
ICTM offers a temporary University Assistant position for a Postdoc with expertise in polymer chemistry and science (time limitation: 1 year) starting with 1st of March 2017. Application deadline: January 25th, 2017; see the announcement in the Mitteilungsblatt (in german)!
CD Laboratory
Beginning of 2017 the Christian Doppler Laboratory at ICTM will be additionally supported by TDK/EPCOS (Deutschlandsberg, Austria); EPCOS is interested in all-solid-state mini batteries that completely rely on ceramic components.
