Novel materials – inspired by water!
The BlueMat Cluster of Excellence has commenced its work at the Technical University of Hamburg – DESY is involved as a partner
Hamburg (reportedly) has more bridges than Venice. This makes the Hanseatic city the perfect location to learn everything about bridges—and from now on, that includes hydrogen bonds. These special chemical “bridges" link a water molecule to its neighbors. They are largely responsible for water's remarkable—and sometimes still puzzling—properties. These very properties form the foundation for a novel class of high-tech materials: "water-driven" or "Blue" Materials. Water's unique traits serve as the key to imparting new functionalities to technical materials. This could lead to smart insulation that dynamically adjusts its thermal regulation to ambient temperatures—or water-based materials that store energy with exceptional efficiency.
"Water already played a decisive role in the first industrial revolution in the 18th century—primarily as a working fluid that enabled steam engines to convert the chemical energy of coal into the kinetic energy of pumps and motors," says Patrick Huber, spokesperson for BlueMat, TUHH professor, and senior scientist at DESY. However, research at the Cluster of Excellence will now focus primarily on the effect of water at the nano level, thereby completely redefining the role of this supposedly "commonplace" liquid in the search for new functionalities.
Water molecules, for example, are extremely flexible in terms of polarisation. With their special combination of electrochemical properties, they react very sensitively to electric fields, surface charges, geometric conditions, or temperature changes. Actively controlling such parameters could be useful in the development of novel energy storage devices. Or for generating electricity in nanoporous material that is exposed to constant wetting and drying, for example due to tidal movements at sea. The young field known as "hydrovoltaics" is already firing the imagination of many researchers. And the "wet-dry tidal power plant" is just one of many ideas.
Other special properties of water also play a role, primarily at the nano level: nanoporous materials, for example, offer an enormous surface area for capillary forces due to the surface tension of water. A nanoporous sponge the size of a sugar cube already has an (internal) surface area as large as a football field. This is a powerful lever for these supposedly small forces—and can be used, for example, for purely water-driven mechanisms of movement and deformation of material.
To better understand these and many other water-related phenomena—and then perhaps even scale them up and make them usable in new technical applications at the macro level: This is the goal of the BlueMat researchers at the new Cluster of Excellence at the TUHH.
What role can DESY play in this collaboration?
Since the spectacular properties of water occur primarily at the molecular level, the deep insights provided by DESY's large X-ray microscopes are essential for unravelling many of water's mysteries. This was emphasised by Beate Heineman, Chair of the DESY Board of Directors, in her keynote speech at the launch of the Cluster of Excellence. And for the future PETRA IV project, molecular water research is nothing less than a "science driver": user groups will be able to test water and aqueous systems under a wide variety of conditions, in a vacuum or under high pressure, liquid or frozen. And above all: over time. This will allow the role of water in all kinds of processes and chemical reactions to be investigated: from corrosion processes to the importance of water molecules in battery chemistry or their exact behaviour in catalysis.
In addition, the Centre for Molecular Water Science (CMWS), which has emerged in recent years on the DESY campus as a pan-European research collaboration, perfectly complements BlueMat research. According to Patrick Huber, this will also be supported by strong personnel links between BlueMat and CMWS.
Around 60 million euros have been approved for the BlueMat Cluster of Excellence at the TU Hamburg. Prof. Andreas Timm-Giel, President of the TU: "This is a real milestone for the TUHH and our path to cutting-edge research. The Cluster of Excellence shows how we combine science with social responsibility—and develop innovations that create real added value for people and the environment."
In addition to DESY, many other institutions are also involved as partners in the TU Hamburg Cluster of Excellence: University of Hamburg, Helmholtz Centre Hereon, Hamburg University of Fine Arts, Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, European XFEL, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Fraunhofer IAPT, Hamburg Media School, Centre for Molecular Water Science CMWS, United Nations University, Joachim Herz Foundation