We congratulate Dr. Florian Speck on receiving the Jülich Excellence Award 2021!

Florian Speck of Forschungszentrum Jülich was honored for his outstanding dissertation on materials for electrocatalysis.

Forschungszentrum Jülich has awarded the 2021 Excellence Prize to Dr. Markus Zimmermann and Dr. Florian Speck. Chairman of the Board of Directors Prof. Wolfgang Marquardt presented the award endowed with € 5,000 to the two research graduates.

“This year’s two prize winners have demonstrated through their scientific work that they have met the particularly high demands associated with the Jülich Excellence Prize,” said Marquardt in his tribute to them. He added that the Board of Directors is very proud that Forschungszentrum Jülich produces such high-calibre early-career scientists, who have helped to shape their research field through their ideas and impetus and have earned international recognition in the process. “At the same time, I hope that the Excellence Prize has a motivating and inspiring effect and that we can continue to award early-career scientists for such a high level of achievement over the coming years.”

2021 Excellence Prize: The two prize winners

Dr. Florian Speck: How to make catalyst materials more stable

Hydrogen is of tremendous importance for the energy transition: It should replace fossil fuels on a large scale, serve as storage for renewable energies, enable mobility and link the various energy sectors with each other - and all this as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. An issue here is the electrocatalysts for fuel cells and electrolysers: during operation, these slowly degrade. Since the catalysts are mostly made of precious metals, this is an expensive process.

In his dissertation, which he wrote in part at the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nuremberg, a branch of the research center, Florian Speck investigated the causes of catalyst destruction - and how it can be avoided or reduced. In parallel, the chemist explored the possibilities of using less expensive materials such as iron, nickel or manganese for the catalysts. Particularly in alkaline environments, some interesting applications were found in which non-precious metals are stable. These include their use as a protective layer against corrosion or as an electrocatalyst itself. The 31-year-old Excellence Award winner now works at automotive and mechanical engineering supplier Schaeffler Technologies AG in Herzogenaurach - an excellent opportunity to contribute his expertise to the development of sustainable products.

Dr. Markus Zimmermann: Shorter and more accurate MRI-measurement

So-called quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a new variant of this examination method with significantly better reproducibility and sensitivity to detect diseases such as multiple sclerosis or damage to the white matter of the central nervous system better and, above all, earlier. It can be used on clinical MRI machines without technical modification. The problem is that the measurement time required has so far been too long to make this method suitable for everyday use in hospitals. The reason: The individual "image layers" are scanned several times, which means that more can be seen, but the examination also takes longer. In his doctoral thesis at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Physics of Medical Imaging, Dr. Markus Zimmermann investigated novel acquisition and reconstruction techniques to shorten the measurement time in quantitative MRI. With his research, the young scientist made a significant contribution on the way to bringing this advanced measurement technique into everyday clinical use.

Now a postdoctoral researcher at the institute, Markus Zimmermann is deepening his research on fast quantitative MRI. To this end, he is further developing the acquisition and reconstruction techniques developed in his doctoral thesis in order to record additional properties of the body tissue while increasing the resolution of the images in a short measurement time.

In addition, the electrical engineer successfully applied for a project within the framework of the Young Investigator Academy for Medical Technology organized by the DFG. Currently, Markus Zimmermann is leading the DFG-funded study "Development of a novel image acquisition and model-based reconstruction method for fast, accurate and robust multiparametric quantitative MRI at ultra-high field strength".

The Jülich Excellence Prize

Forschungszentrum Jülich has been awarding the Excellence Prize since 2009 to young, internationally successful scientists for an outstanding doctoral thesis, whose main parts were written at Jülich, combined with excellent achievements during the postdoc phase. This must be endorsed by a high-ranking committee of four internal and four external professors as well as written external expert opinions. With this year’s two recipients, the number of prize winners has now increased to 33.

Press contact:
Erhard Zeiss
Press Spokesperson
Tel.: 02461 61-1841
E-Mail: e.zeiss@fz-juelich.de