This joint appointment underscores the close strategic partnership between BAM and BTU.
In addition to his professorship at the Institute of Materials Chemistry at the BTU, Prof. Dr Jens Riedel is taking on a central role in the new structural change project HERES – the BTU Centre of Excellence for High-Tech and Energy Materials and their Recycling. The centre is to be established by February 2030. Within the framework of HERES, Prof. Dr Riedel is responsible for the development and integration of an autonomous chemical process analytics system, the development of which is being carried out primarily at the BAM.
In particular, this will enable battery components to be analysed fully automatically in future to identify their constituents and the valuable raw materials they contain. Online monitoring allows for the targeted optimisation of individual process steps.
As one of the three project leaders, he is thus responsible within HERES for establishing a research platform for the sustainable recycling of modern battery materials. This will create a real-world laboratory in Lusatia that develops new technologies across the entire value chain of lithium-ion batteries – from raw material extraction and processing through separation and recycling processes to digital self-driving lab concepts.
At BAM, Prof. Dr Riedel will continue to head the Instrumental Analysis Division, which is dedicated to the development of innovative spectrometric and spectroscopic instruments, automated laboratory processes, robotic sample handling and modern data-driven analytics. Here, too, the focus is on the rapid and automated chemical characterisation of currently relevant material streams, ranging from recycled products such as steel to battery cathode materials.
The joint appointment of Prof. Dr Riedel and the enhanced collaboration on battery recycling form part of the strategic partnership between BAM and BTU. The collaboration generally centres on pooling and expanding shared expertise in the fields of analytics, hydrogen technologies and Materials Science.
In 2023, for instance, BAM and BTU jointly established ‘Trustworthy Hydrogen’, a Graduate College on the topic of hydrogen that is unique in Germany to date; it trains outstanding young scientists who are set to shape the future hydrogen economy in Germany and Europe.
Similarly, the HERES project plans for an intensive exchange of PhD students and researchers from BAM and BTU.
Further information:
-BAM Department of Instrumental Analysis
-Trustworthy Hydrogen Graduate College
