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A long durability, low costs and high sustainability - the requirements for stationary energy storage systems, for example for wind or solar energy, are high. One promising perspective is the still young dual-ion technology. In a collaboration between Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the MEET Battery Research Center, scientists developed a new type of dual-ion battery.

Scientists worldwide have been working flat out on research into infectious diseases in the wake of the global outbreak of the COVID-19 disease, caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This concerns not only virologists, but also physicists, who are developing mathematical models to describe the spread of epidemics.

The lithium-ion battery is currently state of the art, but has not yet realised its full potential. New electrode materials such as silicon instead of pure graphite in the anode offer a significantly increased electrochemical performance. Until now, this has been at the expense of the battery's lifespan.

The production of battery cells includes many consecutive process steps. There is mixing, stirring, coating, rolling, cutting and stacking. Scientists at ProZell work to improve the quality of the final product, make production more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The competence cluster for battery cell production, in which MEET Battery Research Center of University of Münster and Helmholtz Institute Münster (HI MS) of Forschungszentrum Jülich participate, is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

It looks absolutely idyllic, watching the Heck cattle and Konik horses grazing in the meadows in the Emsaue wet meadows near the village of Vadrup. This pasture landscape, covering an area of 33 hectares and used all year round, lies in the Emsaue nature conservation area and was set up in 2004 as part of the implementation of the plan to protect the wet meadows by the River Ems.

It is only 120 millionths of a millimetre in size but can bring entire countries to a standstill: the Corona virus. Even if it were to disappear one day, viral infections will still be among the most frequent and difficult-to-treat diseases in humans. Even decades of research have only produced a few standardized vaccines and strategies for treatment to combat just a small number of viruses.

As the developers of 2-n-way, Dr. Jürgen Schmitz, Dr. Liliya Doronina, Norbert Grundmann, Fengjun Zhang and Dr. Gennady Churakov (from left) are delighted at the publication of their project in the specialist press. Evolution leaves its traces in particular in genomes. Pinpointing its influence is a laborious process - but one in which Dr. Jürgen Schmitz and his team at the University of Münster are at home.

Immunofluorescence staining of the muscle tissue of a chronically diseased human heart under the confocal microscope. Two proteins in the sarcomeres, which give the tissue the characteristic striation pattern, were marked with antibodies and visualized by different fluorophore-conjugated antibodies: titin appears red and actinin green; the nuclei were stained blue.

View of a Drosophila larva (with the head turned to the left). The surrounding glial cells in the peripheral nervous system have been depicted in individual colours by using a genetic trick. To this end, a random combination of a certain set of fluorescent proteins is induced in the surrounding glial cells by means of a systematic expression of a recombinase so that each cell expresses its own colour code and, as a result, becomes visible under the microscope.

How can the lithium-ion battery (LIB) be further improved? To answer this question, MEET scientists around Lenard Hanf developed new methods for capillary electrophoresis. For the first time, this enables a detailed analysis of the transition metal dissolution from LIB cathode materials or the current collector - such as manganese or copper.

Ecosystems are threatened worldwide by rapid climate change. Plants play a critical role in all ecosystems because they are at the basis of all food webs. For many regions that are already very dry today, such as deserts or semi-deserts, climate scenarios predict even lower precipitation levels. A team of researchers led by Katja Tielbörger from the University of Tübingen has now discovered that certain plant species can evolve very quickly under drought conditions.

Young thale cress seedling (Arabidopsis thaliana) with the fluorescent biosensor in its cells. The false colour image shows the redox status of the NAD pool in the cells and tissue. Rainbow scale from blue (oxidized NAD pool) to red (reduced NAD pool). Almost all life on Earth, in particular our food and our health, depend on metabolism in plants.

Researchers develop for the first time light fields using caustics that do not change during propagation / Study in "Nature Communications" Modern applications as high resolution microsopy or microor nanoscale material processing require customized laser beams that do not change during propagation. This represents an immense challenge since light typically broadens during propagation, a phenomenon known as diffraction.

An abandoned space in the middle of Münster: in the historic medicinal plant garden, which hasn't been in use since 2016, nature can pretty much do what it likes. At least, it almost can - anyone who fights their way through an overgrown meadow between Einsteinstraße and Schlossgräfte will come across a clearing, about 50 square metres in size, on which meadow plants are arranged in rows of pots standing on black groundsheets.

Adaptation of cavefish to low-parasite environment may provide autoimmune disease insight / Study published in "Nature Ecology & Evolution" Cavefish are small, live in tucked away places humans rarely go, and they're common enough that you can find them on every continent except Antarctica. But they also have another characteristic that seems surprising at first glance: They can tell researchers something about the occurrence of autoimmune diseases in humans.

Chemists at the University of Münster develop a bioinspired strategy for the controlled synthesis of polyenes / Study published in "Science" They occur in nature, are reactive and play a role in many biological processes: polyenes. It is no wonder that chemists have for a long time been interested in efficiently constructing these compounds - not least in order to be able to use them for future biomedical applications.

The Solid Electrolyte Interphase (SEI) inside both lithium-ion and lithium metal batteries is indispensable for successful battery cell operation and at the same time an analytical challenge. Up to now, its analysis has only been possible to a limited extent; knowledge about formation, composition, growth or reactions is incomplete.

Due to border closures in the wake of the corona crisis, the arrival of refugees in Europe has temporarily dipped. However, worldwide numbers of refugees have surged, again, within a year, driven by violence, war, persecution, economic hardship, or climate change. In the foreseeable future, many refugees will not be able to return to their homes.

It is one of the key technologies for high-performance batteries of the future: the lithium metal battery (LMB). Designed for instance as solid-state battery with polymer electrolyte, it promises a significantly higher energy density than the currently common lithium-ion battery (LIB). However, it is not yet fully developed for the final commercial breakthrough and is therefore currently used by only a few pilot projects.

Molecular switches - they are the molecular counterparts of electrical switches and play an important role in many processes in nature. Such molecules can reversibly interconvert between two or more states and thereby control molecular processes. In living organisms, for example, they play a role in muscle contraction but also our visual perception is based on the dynamics of a molecular switch in the eye.