Halle/Marburg/Gießen (dpa/lhe) – Two Hessian researchers have been awarded the new Greve Prize, worth 250,000 euros, by the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina for their work on rechargeable batteries. The physicist Kerstin Volz (University of Marburg) and the physical chemist Jürgen Janek (University of Giessen) have “contributed to the improvement of high-performance batteries and to new, resource-saving concepts of electrochemical energy storage” with their partly joint work,” the academy said on Thursday in Halle . “You are making important contributions to a sustainable energy supply, which is urgently needed to deal with the climate crisis,” said Leopoldina President Gerald Haug.
The new prize is said to be donated by the Hamburg Foundation for Science, Development and Culture Helmut and Hannelore Greve and awarded every two years. Particularly outstanding research achievements in the fields of natural sciences, medicine and engineering are to be recognized. This year’s first award ceremony is planned for November 17th in Hamburg City Hall.
According to the neighboring universities of Gießen and Marburg, Janek and Volz have been investigating the processes in solid-state batteries and researching structural changes for around ten years. “By combining electron microscopic and electrochemical methods, they were able to elucidate, for example, the aging processes that lead to battery performance losses,” it said.
