HIPOLE conducts research into sustainable polymer materials / Tiefensee: Thuringia to become leading battery research location / Federal and state governments secure long-term funding
The "Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications" (HIPOLE) is a new research facility for Jena as a science location. This was decided by the Senate of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HGF) at its meeting yesterday at the joint request of the Center for Energy and Environmental Chemistry (CEEC) at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (HZB). With the establishment of a new Helmholtz Institute, the presence of the Helmholtz Association as the largest German scientific organization in Thuringia will be expanded. The decision was preceded by a multi-stage, competitive selection process by the Helmholtz Association. In the future, HIPOLE will develop materials and storage technologies that are necessary for the energy transition. Starting in 2028, it will be financed with up to €5.5 million annually from the federal government (90 percent) and the state (10 percent). During the start-up phase, the state will also contribute up to €14 million toward the costs of the institute's buildings and equipment.
"Our goal is to develop Thuringia into a leading location for battery research and production. We will cover the entire value chain from basic and applied research to the further establishment of production companies and start-ups to the recycling of batteries in Thuringia. The research institution shows ways to produce stationary storage systems without rare earths and hazardous substances. This is the breakthrough for the ambitious climate targets and should convince the skeptics," said Thuringia's Minister of Science Wolfgang Tiefensee.
The considerable efforts that the Free State of Thuringia has made since 2014 to set up the CEEC have contributed to the re-establishment of HIPOLE. "With research funding from the state of Baden-Württemberg of over 23 million euros, considerable expertise in the field of energy storage has been built up here. This is now paying off. The new Helmholtz facility will create a battery research center that radiates far beyond Jena and at the same time is deeply anchored in the region's strong scientific environment and entrepreneurial ecosystem," Tiefensee continues. Including the financing of building and equipment costs, the federal government, the state and science foundations have supported the CEEC with a total of more than 60 million euros in recent years.
Even before the establishment of the new HIPOLE Institute, the two applicants CEEC and HZB worked closely together. At the end of 2019, the two institutions founded a "Joint Lab for Polymers for Energy Storage and Conversion"; since 2020, there have been cooperations for individual projects. The specific goal of the new institute is to research polymer materials for new energy technologies. To achieve this, HIPOLE's research approach combines polymer chemistry, materials science, state-of-the-art analytical methods and artificial intelligence with world-leading expertise in polymer-based energy storage and photovoltaics as well as sustainable chemistry.
The founding director and spokesperson for HIPOLE will be the head of CEEC, Prof. Dr. Ulrich S. Schubert. HIPOLE will be based in the newly constructed "CEEC Jena Application Center," which is being funded by state and ERDF funds and is expected to be ready for occupancy in fall 2023; additional space is available in the Jena Technology and Innovation Park.
"Achieving climate neutrality requires a boost in innovation in the development of new, high-performance storage technologies and the decarbonization of many energy-intensive processes," says Tiefensee, describing the expectations associated with the founding of the new institute in Jena. "Polymer materials play a special role here, which gives HIPOLE's research work a forward-looking character." At the same time, he sees the establishment of the new institute as significantly strengthening Jena as a research location – especially because the presence of the Helmholtz Association in Thuringia will be expanded again. In addition to the Helmholtz Institute Jena (HI Jena) as a branch of the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research Darmstadt, there is also the Institute of Data Science of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which is also part of the Helmholtz Association.