The Senate of the Helmholtz Association has decided to establish two new institutes: in Jena, research will be carried out on polymers for sustainable energy. The centers and universities began setting up the new institutes in July.
These can contribute to cutting-edge research. In addition to the 18 Helmholtz Centers, there are already 13 institutes at which the partners combine their expertise in various fields, such as battery research, biodiversity or particle accelerators.
The energy transition is one of the biggest challenges: Innovative conversion, distribution and storage technologies are essential for climate-friendly energy that remains economically and socially viable while ensuring a reliable supply at all times.
Polymers are an important component of such technologies. These chemical compounds are true all-rounders: Helmholtz Association founds new institutes in Heidelberg and Jena They are lightweight, can be recharged quickly, heal themselves and can be processed without requiring a great deal of energy. Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and Friedrich Schiller University Jena want to exploit these properties of polymers at the Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications (HIPOLE). Together, they will develop sustainable materials for scalable applications that can be used to store and convert energy. These materials will then be converted into prototypes, for example for batteries, photovoltaic modules or chemical applications.
The other Helmholtz Institute in Heidelberg (HI-TAC for short) aims to decode the communication center of the cardiovascular system, prevent diseases and enable new therapies.
