October 8, 2025, 15:30 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

Electrokinetic particle separation for material recycling – from Bremen via Dublin to Vienna

Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are prevalent in electric vehicles (EV). EV sales are exponentially increasing and so is the LIB waste we produce. Current LIB waste recycling methods cannot recover graphite and other key elements. Dielectrophoresis (DEP)—an electrokinetic particle manipulation technique—allows for environmentally friendly direct recycling of each LIBs. DEP can separate particles based on differences in composition, size, and shape. Black mass, an intermediate product during LIB recycling, contains tiny graphite and lithium metal oxide (LMO) particles, which can be separated using DEP; this will not only recover the valuable graphite but will also increase recovery efficiencies other materials in subsequent steps. DEP can therefore be used as an intermediate step in LIB recycling.

Georg Pesch is Professor for Particle Technology and Sustainable Engineering at TU Wien. His research focuses on electrokinetic methods for the handling and separation of particles for green and circular technologies. He obtained his PhD in Production Engineering from University of Bremen in 2018 and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Delft University of Technology. After being a group leader in University of Bremen, he became a lecturer at University College Dublin from in 2022 and Professor at TU Wien in 2025. He was a member of MAPEX from 2018 to 2022.

October 8, 2025, 09:45 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

A Research Journey in Additive Manufacturing: From ProMat Student to PhD Project

The presentation Highlights the journey from ProMat Student to PhD research in additive manufacturing. Maylin Homfeldt’s PhD research focuses on the layer-based additive production of iron-based shape memory alloys, which presents both novel opportunities and inherent process-related phenomena that warrant thorough consideration. The elevated manganese content of these shape memory alloys poses a significant challenge to the additive manufacturing process: namely, the need to maintain the homogeneity of the alloy -and thereby its functional properties- throughout the entire component, or to exploit this variability in a deliberate and controlled manner.

Maylin Homfeldt was first drawn to Bremen by the  international and interdisciplinary Biomimetics Bachelor. Captivated by the city’s atmosphere she chose to pursue her Master’s degree here as well. Within the ProMat program, she was given the opportunity to tailor her studies thus laying a focused and deliberate foundation for her current position, which she holds since January 2024, as a PhD Student at the Leibniz-IWT. Motivated by the vast potential and evolving capabilities of additive manufacturing, she choose a number of specialized lectures during her Master’s studies—an area which, today, profoundly influences the daily course of her research.

October 8, 2025, 16:00 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

CALPHAD-based High-Throughput Simulations for Metal Additive Manufacturing

When designing and optimizing materials and manufacturing processes, numerous combinations must be tested. Utilising computational tools for automated screening, such as high-throughput screening (HTS), can reduce the number of real trials needed, saving material costs and energy. This lecture will review solutions for the computational materials community, focusing on HTS in alloy design. The CALPHAD method facilitates the prediction of microstructure evolution by calculating phase distributions in multi-phase systems under various manufacturing conditions. We will demonstrate examples of application of the CALPHAD-based HTS to optimisation of heat treatment for additively manufactured metallic alloys.

Evgeniya Kabliman is a professor for knowledge-based digitalization in materials-oriented production at the University of Bremen and the director of the newly established area “Digital Technologies” at the Leibniz Institute for Materials Engineering – IWT. Prof. Kabliman applies computational methods in materials science and engineering to describe the material's behavior at multiple length scales. Her current research focuses on implementing a computational high-throughput screening approach combined with machine learning.

October 8, 2025, 10:05 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

Rare events and the likelihood of change: an atomistic perspective of electrochemistry and an insight into my scientific journey

Rare events can influence many physical systems and occur on a large scale. While not strictly physical, I will also provide some brief insights how such events may have impacted my career, from my beginnings as a physics student in Bremen, through my time in Lausanne, to finally settling in Hamburg and Geesthacht. From a scientific perspective, I will discuss the ubiquity of water and its unique structural dynamics. Water plays a pivotal role in shaping the properties and functionality of natural materials as a 'working fluid'. Inspired by these marvels of nature, the core idea is to develop a new class of sustainable, interactive and architected 'blue materials' that derive their functionality from the multiscale structures of hard matter interacting with water. Novel effects achieved through the nanoconfinement of water are increasingly being exploited for this, but unfortunately these often do not exceed the laboratory scale. I will demonstrate how these nanoconfinement effects could be exploited to store energy more efficiently in supercapacitors, harvest energy from temperature differences via the electrolytic Seebeck effect, and utilise capillary-driven imbibition and drying cycles in nanopores to enable energy harvesting on a much larger scale. I will also present recent fluidic insights into the solid–liquid interface, which is often only nanometres thick yet tremendously important for many physical and chemical processes. Along this line, I will explain why machine learning force fields are becoming increasingly important and how they are currently disrupting the field.

Robert Meißner is a professor and the head of the Institute for Interface Physics and Engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology. He is also head of the Department of Atomistic Corrosion Informatics at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon. He obtained a diploma in physics in 2010 and a PhD in production engineering in 2015, both from the University of Bremen. Prior to moving to Hamburg, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. His research focuses on applying machine learning methods to atomistic simulations, particularly for modelling electrochemical processes which includes using virtual potentiostats in empirical force fields and ab initio methods. He aims to understand the underlying mechanisms of electrochemical processes, energy storage and corrosion at solid-liquid interfaces by combining these methods to improve materials from the atomic scale. He is passionate about science and interpreting the world through algorithms.

October 8, 2025, 16:45 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

Kurosch Rezwan is Professor of Advanced Ceramics and holds a PhD in Materials Science from ETH Zurich. He works at the intersection of science and innovation, developing advanced ceramic materials for healthcare, sustainability, clean energy, and high-performance technologies. Since 2019 he has been spokesperson of MAPEX, driving major research initiatives together with colleagues. In 2024 he also co-founded the Matena innovate! Center as the scientific director, where research teams turn scientific breakthroughs into practical innovations and strong industry partnerships.

October 8, 2025, 16:45 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

Julia Hansen studied civil engineering in Braunschweig (Germany) and Trondheim (Norway). Since 2024, she is the head of Materials and Processes Space Systems Germany at Airbus Defence and Space where she has been working in different positions since 2010.

October 8, 2025, 16:45 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

Katharina Koschek leads a division at Fraunhofer IFAM developing advanced adhesive bonding technology and lightweight materials and manufacturing processes for applications in aerospace, mobility, and energy sectors. As a chemist she is particularly interested in the research of sustainable polymers and composite materials with focus on repairability and circularity.

October 8, 2025, 16:45 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

Chiara Pedersoli studied aerospace engineering at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy). She worked at various institutions (DLR/GSOC, ESA-ESOC, Eumetsat, Airbus UK/DE, Kayser-Threde/OHB), initially as an engineer on Earth observation, navigation and exploration missions with increasing responsibility.

Since January 2020, she has been a member of the Management Board of OHB System responsible for Engineering and Testing and is responsible for all technical departments in the company in Bremen and Oberpfaffenhofen. Since 2024, she has taken over the role as CEO of OHB System AG, a subsidiary of OHB SE, Germany's first listed space and technology company.

October 8, 2025, 16:45 CEST

Forum at Domshof, Banking hall (Kassenhalle), Domshof 26, 28199 Bremen

Nicola Marzari earned his PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 1996. He currently holds
the Chair of Theory and Simulation of Materials at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He also serves as the Director of the National Centre for Computational Design and Discovery of Novel Materials. In addition, he heads the Laboratory for Materials Simulations at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) and holds an Excellence Chair at the University of Bremen, Germany. He has recently been elected to the prestigious Cavendish Professorship
of Physics at the University of Cambridge (UK)