Program

Metal halide perovskites are a class of semiconductors that can be processed with low-cost coating methods while maintaining good properties. A brief introduction will be provided on these materials and their use in photovoltaic and light-emitting devices. I will then focus on the benefits of vacuum processed perovskites and discuss different vacuum based processing methods.

I will show some of the recent results obtained in my research group and highlight the shortcomings that would need to be overcome.

Transport of charges or spins, interaction of light and matter, responses to external stimuli or encoding information, all these processes are part of our modern technologies, but they all depend on materials.

This talk is a synthesis-driven journey through the fascinating landscape of carbon nanostructures as materials. Two principles stand in the foreground: regarding structures, it is precision even for ultralarge polymers, regarding synthesis, it is a two-step protocol where dendritic 3D-polyphenylenes are flattened toward 2D-graphene molecules. This astonishing reaction can be performed oxidatively in solution, but also thermally after deposition of the precursors on catalytically active metal surfaces. The latter protocol offers an additional opportunity, namely monitoring the reactions by scanning probe methods and thus “seeing” a polymer grow in situ. Employing these synthetic methods, we introduce a unique family of unprecedented semiconductors: disc-type nanographenes (NGs) and graphene nanoribbons (GNRs).

To understand their role as active components of electronic and spintronic devices, let us consider the transport of charges (electrons or holes) for which high charge mobilities are particularly desirable. Looking, for example, at field effect transistors as omnipresent constituents of electronic circuits, high mobilities imply high switching speed. Graphene, a 2D-semiconductor, is hailed as wonder material due to its high charge mobility. Its practical value, however, is severely hampered due to its vanishing band gap which would exclude any off-state of the switch.

Important features of the NGs and GNRs are i) non-vanishing electronic band gaps due to the geometric confinement, ii) stable high-spin systems with precise spin-spin interactions, and iii) exotic quantum states. Among the many opportunities for new device concepts, applications for quantum computing will appear particularly exciting.

Please, donnot understand this talk as exercise of an amateur physicist since chemistry stands in the foreground. A key aspect is the controlled transition between 2D- and 3D- carbon nanostructures. 3D-Polyphenylenes are not only carbon reservoirs for graphene synthesis, but also efficient light-harvesting complexes. A groundbreaking outcome is that nanographenes serve as precursors for the perfect fabrication of nanodiamonds.

Nature 2010, 2016, 2018, 2026; Nature Synthesis 2022; Nature Materials 2023; Nature Chemistry 2014, 2024, 2026.

Developing sustainable materials requires more than replacing petroleum-derived components with renewable biomass. It also requires understanding how biological feedstocks can be processed, organized, and transformed into materials with controlled structure and properties. Microalgae offer an attractive platform for this purpose because they are photosynthetic, compositionally rich, widely available, and can be cultivated without directly competing with conventional food crops. Yet their use in structural materials raises fundamental materials-science questions: how does cellular morphology affect processability, cohesion, and mechanical performance, and how can biological microstructure be preserved or modified during fabrication? In this lecture, I will discuss microalgae-based biocomposites as a model system for connecting sustainability with processing–structure–property relationships. The first part of the lecture will introduce the broader challenges of forming materials from biomass, including flow behavior, shape retention, drying-induced shrinkage, microstructural integrity, and mechanical response. I will present recent work using Chlorella vulgaris microalgae to fabricate lightweight hierarchical biocomposites by room-temperature extrusion-based 3D printing. By controlling formulation, printing conditions, and dehydration, these materials develop tunable mechanical behavior together with low thermal conductivity. I will also discuss complementary work on Spirulina-based materials, where preserving or disrupting the native cellular microstructure strongly influenced printability, cohesion, shrinkage, and compressive performance. These studies show that biomass should not be viewed simply as a passive filler, but as a functional material component whose morphology, chemistry, and processing history govern final properties. This perspective highlights microalgae as a versatile platform for designing sustainable materials through biological structure and materials processing.

Among living organisms, plants exhibit a remarkable range of strategies for interacting with complex and heterogeneous environments, shaped by millions of years of evolution across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. As living, adaptive systems, they continuously negotiate energy, matter, and information with their surroundings, providing a powerful blueprint for the design of next-generation materials and robotic systems.

In this talk, I will explore how key functional principles from plant biology-including morphology and biomechanics-can be translated into plant-inspired and biohybrid microfabricated systems. These systems, in turn, open new opportunities for sustainable technologies in agriculture, environmental monitoring, and robotics. I will present a new class of miniaturized, multifunctional plant-inspired machines designed for in situ environmental monitoring and targeted cargo delivery in confined and unstructured environments.

These systems combine bioinspired design with biohybrid approaches, integrating morphological and biomechanical features derived from both terrestrial and aquatic plants. Advanced fabrication techniques—including microcomputed tomography, two-photon lithography, and bioprinting—enable the development of scalable and sustainable prototypes with high structural and functional complexity across multiple length scales. When deployed in real-world environments, such as soil, plant tissues, and aquatic systems, these machines exhibit plant-like strategies for actuation, anchoring, and interaction with natural substrates.

Overall, this work highlights how plant biology can inform the design of adaptive and physically embodied systems for sustainable environments, while also providing a complementary experimental platform to investigate functional plant traits and ecosystem-level interactions. By bridging biology, robotics, and materials science, plant-inspired biohybrid systems contribute to a broader understanding of living matter and open new directions for ecology, environmental restoration, and bioinspired engineering.

Developing technologies for producing carbon-neutral transportation fuels has become a global energy challenge, especially for the long-haul aviation sector. A promising sustainable solution is the solar-driven production of drop-in fuels synthetic substitutes for conventional petroleum-derived hydrocarbons such as synthetic kerosene, diesel, and gasoline. We have demonstrated the stable operation under field conditions of the entire solar fuel production chain, from concentrated sunlight and ambient air to the synthesis of drop-in fuels. The solar fuel system integrates three thermochemical conversion processes: 1) the co-extraction of CO2 and H2O directly from air; 2) the solar co-splitting of CO2 and H2O to produce a tailored syngas mixture of H2 and CO; and 3) the conversion of syngas to liquid hydrocarbons.

The solar reactor technology is further scaled-up and demonstrated using a solar tower configuration, setting a technological milestone towards the industrial production of sustainable aviation fuels.

Coding Hardware and Closing the Loop: Interconnected Autonomous Research Laboratories

The acceleration of materials discovery requires a fundamentally different relationship between software, hardware, and experimental data. In this lecture, I will present FINALES (Federated Infrastructure for Networked Laboratory Automation and Experimental Synthesis) [1] — a framework for orchestrating distributed experimental and computational resources through a shared data and task management layer. Building such infrastructure fundamentally requires rethinking the design of research itself: moving beyond linear chains of experiments toward genuine engineering of how we orchestrate, structure, and design research campaigns. Using thermal catalysis as a demonstrator, I will show how multiple labs can function as nodes in a federated research network, sharing tasks, data, and models in real time while maintaining local autonomy. I will also discuss how vibe coding approaches are lowering the barrier for experimental scientists to extend their own automation infrastructure, and outline practical strategies for FAIR data management that enable closed-loop optimization across sites.

[1] Vogler, M., Bhowmik, A., Stein, H. et al., “FINALES — A Server to Orchestrate Autonomous Research Campaigns,” Advanced Energy Materials, 2024, 14, 2403263

Carbon occupies a unique place in science and technology. From energy storage to advanced electronics, many of the technologies needed for a sustainable future rely on carbon-based materials. At the same time, carbon possesses an unparalleled ability to form diverse chemical structures. Yet despite centuries of study, there is little reason to believe that we have reached the limits of carbon’s possibilities.

In this lecture, I will discuss the unique role of carbon in sustainability and materials discovery, highlighting how advances in synthesis have repeatedly expanded the boundaries of accessible chemical space and revealed entirely new classes of materials. However, many regions of carbon chemical space remain difficult to access because conventional solution-based synthetic approaches are often poorly suited for constructing extended covalent architectures.

To address this challenge, my laboratory seeks to expand carbon chemical space through the vapor-phase polymerization of organic molecules. By harnessing solid-state synthetic strategies, we aim to access extended covalent materials that are difficult or impossible to obtain through conventional solution chemistry, opening new routes to previously inaccessible carbon architectures.

Ultimately, this work is guided by a simple question: How much carbon chemistry remains undiscovered, and what might we learn when we finally learn how to build it?

Recent advances in electrochemical energy technologies require materials that are not only highly active, but also durable, selective, and capable of operating efficiently under demanding conditions. In this talk, I will present how nanostructured carbon-based interfaces can evolve from passive supports into active and adaptive components that govern catalyst performance and reaction pathways, enabling new opportunities for sustainable energy conversion and storage.

First, I will discuss strategies developed to stabilize metal nanoparticles through their selective assembly at graphitic step-edges inside carbon nanofibers. These confined architectures suppress catalyst degradation and provide exceptional long-term stability, while opening the possibility of dynamically reconfigurable catalyst–support interfaces. By introducing sulfur functionalities, adaptive supports have been engineered that not only enhance activity and durability but also modulate the electronic structure of active sites, leading to highly selective urea oxidation coupled to hydrogen production with Faradaic efficiencies approaching 92%.

The second part of the talk will highlight how support interactions and local microenvironments can fundamentally alter reaction mechanisms, illustrating how identical catalytic species may promote different electrochemical reactions depending on their mode of assembly. These findings demonstrate that catalyst supports can actively determine activity, selectivity, and even the reaction itself.

Finally, I will present recent developments in aqueous Zn-based energy storage, including bifunctional catalysts for rechargeable Zn–air batteries and the discovery of a new porous supramolecular liquid electrolyte for Zn–bromine batteries. This unconventional electrolyte stabilizes molecular bromine through nanoscale confinement, suppressing parasitic reactions and improving reversibility and durability, while enabling simpler and more sustainable battery architectures.

Overall, the work illustrates how controlling interfacial chemistry and confinement effects across multiple length scales provides new design principles for next-generation electrocatalysts and electrolytes aimed at sustainable energy conversion and large-scale energy storage.

Over 400 million tons of polymers are manufactured each year, of which only a small fraction are recycled. About 5% are polymer adhesives, which play an important role in many industrial, consumer and medical products. Many are petroleum-derived and challenging to recycle due to intimate integration with other materials. Consequently, many polymer adhesives are destined for the waste stream and ultimately landfilled, incinerated or discarded into the environment.

In this talk, I will describe two approaches to improving polymer sustainability: upcycling and closed-loop recycling. In polymer upcycling, a low-cost waste polymer is converted into a higher-value material. I will provide an example of polyethylene functional upcycling, achieved by catalytic chemical modification to produce a polyethylene that exhibits enhanced adhesion.

In closed-loop recycling, polymer is collected after use, reprocessed, and converted back into raw materials (monomers) or new products, allowing the material to be used repeatedly without degradation. Polymers of -lipoic acid (aLA) have the potential for closed-loop recycling, but their performance has been historically plagued by spontaneous depolymerization. I will describe a facile method for catalyst-free LA polymerization, affording polymers that are resistant to spontaneous depolymerization. A small library of LA monomer derivatives provided access to a surprisingly wide range of physical properties and uses. Examples of structural, pressure-sensitive and medical adhesives will be provided. This family of adhesives can be recycled in a closed-loop manner using 2-step aqueous solvent processing at >80% monomer recovery efficiency, suggesting that aLA adhesives could be more eco-friendly than existing commercial adhesives.

Next to healthcare, safe and affordable energy is probably the crucial need of modern societies. Energy technologies rely on three different concepts: energy saving, energy storage and energy transformation (use of the term “transformation” is suggested instead of “generation”, energy is never generated). Research in this direction must combine scientific and technical approaches, but always depends on the applied materials, even if not all physicists, engineers and political decision makers seem to be aware of it.

It is shown herein how graphene can be fabricated and incorporated into batteries and supercapacitors as energy storage devices. Often, hybrids of graphene and inorganic components (silicon, metals, metal oxides) reveal superior capacitance. Batteries are made for high energy density, supercapacitors for high power density. Energy transformation is demonstrated for oxygen reduction in fuel cells. The required catalysts are obtained from single atoms of non-noble metals. Their fabrication must combine high loading on supports with the avoidance of aggregation.

The critical feature of any energy transformation is efficiency, which can be documented for light emitting diodes and photovoltaic cells, but also for processes such as photothermal conversion.

Science 2016; Nature Rev. Chem. 2017; Nature 2018; Nature Commun. 2014, 2020, 2024, 2025 J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 2023, 2024.

Surface chemistry offers powerful routes to materials synthesis by using interfaces not only as supports, but as reactive environments in which molecular precursors can be transformed into extended, low-dimensional, and otherwise difficult-to-access structures. In this lecture, I will discuss on-surface synthesis in combination with scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and spectroscopy as an atomic-scale platform for materials prototyping: model structures can be built, visualized, modified, and probed directly on surfaces, enabling structure-property relationships to be established with single-molecule and even bond-level precision.

The concept will be illustrated with examples from carbon-based and heteroatom-doped low-dimensional materials. First, controlled surface reactions provide access to nonbenzenoid sp2 carbon allotropes containing nonhexagonal rings, including the biphenylene network, a 4–6–8 carbon allotrope with metallic character already at very small dimensions [1,2]. Second, long acenes are discussed as atomically precise model systems for extended π-conjugation, open-shell electronic structure, and molecular magnetism. Using multistep single-molecule manipulation, tridecacene and pentadecacene, the longest acenes reported to date, were synthesized and characterized [3,4]. Third, heteroatom incorporation is shown to tune the electronic structure of molecular nanocarbons, using nitrogen-containing cycloarenes and N-doped graphene nanoribbons as examples [5,6].

Together, these examples show how surface chemistry, microscopy, and spectroscopy can move beyond passive characterization toward the deliberate construction and testing of materials motifs. Such atomic-scale prototyping provides a powerful route to identify design principles, uncover structure–property relationships, and explore functional materials concepts relevant to energy conversion, storage, catalysis, and quantum technologies.

References[1] Q.T. Fan et al., J.M. Gottfried, Nat. Chem. 18, 959–966 (2026).

[2] Q.T. Fan et al., J.M. Gottfried, Science 372, 852-856 (2021).

[3] Z. Ruan et al., J.M. Gottfried, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 146, 3700-3709 (2024).

[4] Z. Ruan et al., J.M. Gottfried, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 147, 4862–4870 (2025).

[5] Z. Ruan et al., J.M. Gottfried, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 147, 43501-43508 (2025).

[6] Z. Ruan et al., J.M. Gottfried, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 164, e202504707 (2025).

To mitigate global climate change and improve sustainable resources, discovery of new, stable, and highly active photovoltaic and catalytic materials is a pressing issue. The efforts, so far, have focused on abundant, accessible, low-cost, stable alternatives that will yield process efficiencies comparable or better than those we have today. In electrocatalysis, the desired products are fuels and energy carriers for clean and sustainable energy sources, for instance, electrocatalytic reduction of CO2, which can lead to valuable molecules, such as CH4 and CH3OH. Another important reaction is water electrolysis, especially the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) anodic component, which can promote a H2 economy. The catalysts used by the industry today contain expensive and non-abundant elements such as Pt, Ir, and Ru. Furthermore, photovoltaic absorbers and selective contacts need to be improved for high efficiency and long-term stability, as current materials, such as halide perovskites are still not completely up to the task. Moreover, many of these materials are mostly prepared by wet chemical synthesis, which results in chemical waste and can be too slow for industrial use. These reasons emphasize the motivation to accelerate the process of finding new materials by systematic exploration of several parameter spaces.

Here I present the progress in the development of materials for energy conversion using high-throughput experimentation (HTE) techniques to form different types of material compositions and nanostructures as functional electrocatalysts and photovoltaic materials. I will discuss various types of high-throughput synthetic tools such as, sputtering and inkjet printing, that lead to huge parameter spaces. Post-processing of the material libraries includes high-throughput ex-situ, in-situ, and operando scanning systems, which are used investigate the chemical, physical, and morphological properties. I will examine several important techniques that have been developed in recent years and highlight aspects that still need to be improved on. Finally, I will conclude with new directions for HTE, especially in relation to full workflow integration with machine learning for developing new energy conversion materials.