Using iron for sustainability – Together towards the goal

56 professors, postdocs and doctoral students from TU Darmstadt and the other CRC sites met in the first week of October 2022 for the CRC general assembly in Weinheim (Bergstrasse). The programme of the general assembly was entitled “Strengthening Collaborations”. Only through working collaborations the CRC can achieve its overall goal: To understand iron in its compounds in such a way that in the long term, by precisely changing the chemical environment, iron can be influenced in such a way that it becomes interesting for a wide range of applications. Because even if new technologies are sustainable as such, rare, toxic or critical metals are often used here.

For example, precious metals are currently accelerating the reactions taking place in electro- and thermo-catalysis, while magnets containing neodymium are used in wind turbines. Replacing such metals counteracts earth overload and thus helps the environment and society. The interdisciplinary goal of the CRC is being worked on in 26 subprojects in three research areas.

A diverse programme contributed to strengthening the collaborations: The three research areas “oxidative environment”, “(pseudo)molecular environment” and “metallic environment” as well as the public project and the synthesis project presented their research progress in lectures and posters. First promising results and measurement set-ups were introduced and discussed. In order to coordinate common goals, the researchers consulted within the research areas. The project leaders collected ideas in a strategy session, while the early career researchers were able to deepen their knowledge in a workshop on “Publishing and Scientific Writing”. The entire CRC team was mixed up in a science pub quiz, where the question “Which letter does not appear in the periodic table of the elements?” was not the only one that had the audience puzzling together.

“It was a pleasure to discuss all our results within the consortium. I am excited about the results and look forward to further progress!” said spokesperson Prof*in. Ulrike Kramm after the event.

Pictures: Rahel Welsen