Science Talk with Martin Winter at Annual Conference of Helmholtz Association
At its annual conference in Berlin on 14 September, the Helmholtz Association ran with the tagline “from data to knowledge”. In addition to digitization, Germany’s largest science organization focused on the future of mobility. More than 700 invited guests were welcomed to the official event in Berlin-Mitte by Otmar Wiestler, President of the Helmholtz Association, and Johanna Wanka, German Federal Minister of Education and Research. Digitization and mobility are issues of high relevance for the future of our society, explained Wiestler. These two topics were explored in more depth during two Science Talks.
Martin Winter, who was recently named once again as a highly cited author by Web of Science, is a renowned battery expert. He is a founding director of the Helmholtz Institute Münster (HI MS), whose research is focused on electrolytes – an important component of electrochemical storage technologies – and is also founder and scientific head of the battery research centre MEET at the University of Münster. Winter discussed the issue of mobility together with Prof. Dr. Pascale Ehrenfreund, Chair of the Executive Board at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and Prof. Dr. Dirk Heinrichs, Head of the Department of Mobility and Urban Development at DLR.
During the panel discussion, Winter spoke about how storage technologies need to satisfy a diverse range of very high demands. It would be possible to reach a hasty conclusion that all challenges in the field of battery research have already been resolved, he explained: “We have a battery with a range of 700 km to 800 km. A battery that can be charged in 5 minutes. A battery that is dirt cheap. And a battery with a lifetime of 20 years. Unfortunately, they are four separate batteries. What we now need is an all-rounder.” However, research is making constant progress and electromobility is a key technology among the alternative drive systems competing with combustion engines.
The entire annual conference including the Science Talk on mobility can be viewed here.
