Featured in Beyond solar – 08-2023

In Conversation: Power to the polymers

The start of July 2023 saw the establishment in Germany of the Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications (HIPOLE), a collaboration between Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) that will apply expertise in polymer science to various energy-related applications, with a strong focus on developing sustainable, recyclable polymer materials. pv magazine met with Ulrich S. Schubert, founding director of HIPOLE, to discuss the new institute’s work and the many exciting crossovers between the fields of polymer science and renewable energy.

By

Mark Hutchins

25 Jul 2023

Schubert’s group at Uni Jena developed a redox flow battery based on a water soluble polymer, eliminating the need for vanadium and other toxic or expensive materials. | Photo: Jan-Peter Kasper/Uni Jena

pv magazine: Can you tell us a bit more about the establishment of the Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications? What are the institute’s overall goals?At University Jena we have a center called CEEC Jena – Center for Energy and Environmental Chemistry Jena, which was founded in 2014, and this picked up developments in …

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