Welcome to the Young Investigator Network (YIN)

Markus Breig, KIT

Actinides are radioactive elements needed for specific cancer treatment or new remediation methods for radioactively contaminated areas. For her ERC project “The Actinide Bond – Actinide Bond Property in Gas, Liquid and Solid State”, YIN alumna Tonya Vitova concentrates on the relationship between covalency and the strength of the chemical actinide bonds. To this end, she combines synchrotron radiation-based X-ray spectroscopy methods with quantum chemistry calculations. Within YIN, she is the 14th ERC grantee and the 5th Helmholtz group leader to secure an ERC grant.

Dmitry Doronkin, KIT

Catalysts accelerate chemical reactions in order to reduce energy consumption and undesired by-products as in emission control. “To really understand how these materials function, we need to take a look inside the reactor when the catalyst is working,” says Thomas Sheppard. With a newly developed setup, the operando X-ray spectroscopy, his team succeeded in tracking the complex 3D structure of an active catalyst in cooperation with the Swiss Light Source of Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France. The results are published in Nature Catalysis.

Manuel Pietsch, KIT

Electronic waste that is biodegradable? For printed displays, it has become a reality. Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa's group used biocompatible materials of mainly natural origin for this purpose. The inkjet printing process also enables customised, cost-effective and material-efficient production with high throughput. Sealing with gelatine makes the displays adaptable and adherent. Thus, they can be worn directly on the skin and are suitable for use e.g. in medical diagnosis or food packaging. The researchers published their results in the Journal of Materials Chemistry.