Fundamentals of Energy Conversion Processes

A DFG Cluster of Excellence

With Fun and Success through the PhD Thesis

With a kick-off meeting, the e-conversion graduate program officially started on St. Nicholas´ Day. The newly elected student board is looking forward to the ideas of their PhD colleagues and to creating a lively network.

Economizing on iridium

The nobel metal iridium is ideally suited for hydrogen production via electrolysis – and it is extremely expensive. But now a new kind of electrode helps you save real money. It is made of highly porous material and does an excellent job with just a hint of iridium.

About e-conversion

The e-conversion Cluster of Excellence, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), focuses on researching energy conversion processes that take place at interfaces. Wherever light, charges, and matter interact, our Cluster of Excellence explores the fundamentals of future energy technologies.

How can we convert and store energy more efficiently and sustainably? This question lies at the heart of e-conversion. The Cluster of Excellence investigates interfaces – the areas where light, charge, and matter come together. At these junctions, the key processes of energy conversion take place. This is where the joint Cluster of Excellence of the Technical University of Munich and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, together with its partner institutions (see below), concentrates its research efforts. e-conversion brings together more than 40 research groups working to understand the structures, phenomena, and processes at interfaces in detail. The reason: Whether in solar cells, (photo)catalytic reactors, or batteries, the mechanisms of energy conversion at the microscopic and (sub-)atomic level are remarkably similar. Despite different classes of materials, processes such as charge separation and ion transport exhibit comparable characteristics. Read more…

Media

Events

TUM Sustainability Day 2026
Scheduled
The next TUM Sustainability Day takes place on 29 April 2026.
e-conversion Conference 2026
from to
Scheduled
The next cluster conference will take place in Venice from 4 October to 9, 2026.

Recent Publications

M L Peng, S Amzil, Z Z Ru, M Q Wu, T H Xu, T L Zheng, S Y Luo, Y H Li, Y Y Xiao, S Tian, J Gao, P Müller-Buschbaum, Y J Cheng, Y G Xia

Tailored anion-solvent solvation for robust wide-temperature and high-voltage lithium-ion batteries Journal Article

In: Materials Today Energy, vol. 54, 2025, ISSN: 2468-6069.

Abstract | Links

D H Nguyen, M Osenberg, C Schneider, J Moosmann, F Beckmann, I Manke, B V Lotsch

Effect of Stack Pressure on the Microstructure and Ionic Conductivity of the Slurry-Processed Solid Electrolyte Li7SiPS8 Journal Article

In: Advanced Materials Interfaces, 2025, ISSN: 2196-7350.

Abstract | Links

R Babu, J E Heger, T Dutta, X W Hu, N Pradhan, P Muller-Buschbaum, S Gomez-Grana, L Polavarapu

Chiral Molecules in Action: Chemistry of Chiral Perovskite and Perovskite-Inspired Materials Journal Article

In: Acs Energy Letters, vol. 10, no. 11, pp. 5703-5721, 2025, ISSN: 2380-8195.

Abstract | Links