Sabrina Stritzel and her team presented their work on chitosans for green batteries

This Saturday, Sabrina Stritzel, Paulina Pieloch, Nadine Dank, Jennifer Wosnik and Hendrik Schulenkorf presented the results of their project on chitosan functionalisation in a public event organised by the Hans-Böckler-Berufskolleg where they are pursuing extra-occupational training as chemical engineers. Part of this training is an extended practical project which Sabrina, our research technician in the smartBioS project, and her friends decided to perform in our group, guided by Max Linhorst, one of our doctoral researchers in the grEEn graduate school. The goal of grEEn, which is coordinated by MEET - Münster Electrochemical Energy Technology, is to come up with solutions for “green batteries”. Chitosan polymers are potentially interesting candidates for renewable materials that could be used in batteries to make them more sustainable. However, to function properly and reliably in the environment of a battery, the chitosans need to be chemically functionalised, e.g. to make them more electrochemically stable or soluble in organic solvents, or to modulate their physico-chemical properties. During long evenings and weekends, Sabrina’s team has been working with Max on new strategies to allow such functionalisations, optimizing reaction conditions and establishing analytical methods to better monitor the progress und substitution efficiency of the reaction. Last Saturday, they proudly presented their results alongside all the other teams of their class, and they hardly had a minute to breath in between explaining their project to the visitors. Well done - and thank you for lending us your hands and brains to support Max’ project!