🎭 Last week, Bettina, Max, Christian, Sam, and Tobias were at the e-conversion conference in Venice. Four days of inspiring talks, delicious pizza, and catching up with an old friend: Douglas Fabini, a former postdoc in our group. Sam gave a workshop on science communication and public outreach.

And that's a wrap! Robert and Lucas just returned from the Institute Laue-Langevin, where—together with our collaborators from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin—they measured QENS and neutron diffraction of some exciting solid electrolytes. ⚛️ Stay tuned for new results! #chemsky

Lithium makes the difference! 🔋 Combining X-ray, neutron diffraction, and high-temperature NMR, we found a novel third Li₄SnS₄ polymorph. We reveal that lithium vacancy disorder is the main differentiator of the three polymorphs. Check it out: doi.org/10.1021/acs.... #chemsky

Lithium Makes the Difference─Evolution of Lithium Vacancy Disorder during Temperature-Induced Phase Transitions of the Li-Ion Conductor Li4SnS4

Abstract. Sulfide-based lithium-ion solid electrolytes are promising candidates for solid-state batteries due to their high ionic conductivities, although

doi.org

Our new paper, led by Julia, is out now! Can mixing linkers tune (dark) photocatalytic activity and charge storage in MOFs? We explored exactly that, and the results are worth a read 👀: advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Our new paper led by Xue is now on JACS! We uncovered direct light-to-electron storage in a bipyridine-based covalent triazine framework (CTF) and utilized its controlled release of electrons for aqueous solar batteries and H2/H2O2 production in the dark 🔋⛽ doi.org/10.1021/jacs...

How small can a robot be? 🤖🔬 Check out these microrobots! We prepared a nano-hybrid combining covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and magnetic nanoparticles which could be used for biomedical applications. Stay tuned for the upcoming publication 👀👀

Our Post-Docs Andrés, Stefan and Tigmansu and intern student Elsa visited the ICCC46 Conference in Odense Denmark with some great contributions. 🇩🇰 We also met former group member @kenichiendo.bsky.social and had an amazing full week of coordination chemistry. #chemsky

Bettina and our PhD student Youngseon attended the Solid State Ionics 25 #SSI25 in Singapore. 🇸🇬 Bettina gave a plenary talk on 'Optoelectronics Meets Ionics: From Photo-intercalation to Solar Batteries' and Youngseon presented her poster on halide solid electrolytes. 🎉 #chemsky

Exciting week! 🇸🇪 Borja, Jihun, Xue, and Diego went to the 11th European Crystallographic School in Stockholm! It was an amazing opportunity to learn crystallography from scratch, straight from the top experts in the field. Excited to look at our beautiful crystal structures back in the lab! 👀

Shun @shuntokuda.bsky.social , Perry, and Bibhuti @bbrath.bsky.social successfully survived the 24-hour experiments at the BESSY II 14.1 single-crystal beamline 💫💠 They are very excited about the many new structures upcoming!

Shout-outs to Prof. Dr. Bettina V. Lotsch, director of the Nanochemistry department, on being elected as a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina! 🥳🥳🥳 Link to the full article: www.fkf.mpg.de/8992608/2026... @leopoldina.org @lotschgroup.bsky.social #Leopoldina

Marcelo Malagutti presented on thermal diffuse scattering in nanocrystalline systems at the 19th European Powder Diffraction Conference and TOPAS workshop in Crans-Montana🇨🇭. The event sparked new collaborations to advancing powder diffraction tools for complex energy materials' analysis.🚀🧪

As part of @crc1333.bsky.social, our PhD student Amelie attended the CataLysis Networking Conference 2026 in Weimar 🇩🇪, where she had the opportunity to network with 6 other CRCs/TRRs focused on catalysis and presented her poster on #COFs in #eCO2RR. #chemsky

It was a great pleasure to welcome Prof. Shuhei Furukawa (@furukawas.bsky.social) from Kyoto University for a fascinating talk on “Van der Waals Porous Solids.” He shared inspiring insights into metal-organic polyhedra and engaged in lively discussions with our group!

Bettina and our postdocs Xue, Bibhuti, and a PhD student Diego attended the MOF2026 conference in New Orleans🗽 Bettina gave a plenary lecture on redox conductivity and optoionics in molecular frameworks, and Xue, Bibhuti, and Diego presented their work on redox activity and crystallization of COFs

Congratulations Jiyeon for your Humboldt Fellowship! We are proud of you! 👏👏👏

Jiyeon Kim@jiyeonkim.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Honored to be awarded the Humboldt Research Fellowship! My heartfelt gratitude goes to @lotschgroup.bsky.social and @chem571.bsky.social for their continued support and encouragement Excited for this next chapter as an AvH fellow at @mpifkf.bsky.social www.unist.ac.kr/unist/center...

Growing large crystals is often challenging, but always rewarding💠💠💠 Join us to admire these beautiful single crystals of ReO3, prepared by Lucas and others! 🤩😍

Our new Hot Paper 🔥 is out in @angewandtechemie.bsky.social: co-first authors Lucas G. Balzat and Robert Calaminus use #BayesianOptimization to boost Li7SiPS8 ionic conductivity while lowering synthesis temperature and time. #SolidElectrolytes doi.org/10.1002/anie...

Optimize Before You Synthesize—Enhancing the Ionic Conductivity of Li7SiPS8 Using Bayesian Optimization

Bayesian optimization was used to optimize the synthesis parameters of the solid electrolyte Li7SiPS8$\mathrm {Li}_7\mathrm {SiPS}_8$ in order to increase the ionic conductivity. After only 32 iterat...

doi.org

Thrilled to explore #SwissCAT + West Hub #EPFL 🤖 with @thdept-fhi-mpg.bsky.social! Many thanks to Arun from #Bruker #Chemspeed for arranging & Stefano di Leone for the tour. Valuable insights for #AMDL & #SolBatCenter automation projects!

On May 17th, 21 members of the MPI-FKF from 12 different nations participated as the FKF-Nanorunners team at the 33rd Stuttgart run 🏃🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️ In the ranking of female runners, the team reached a respectable 15th (out of 122) rank, and in the ranking of male runners, the 27th (out of 180) position! 👏👏

Last week, Lucas and Jakob visited the UK High-Field Solid-State NMR Facility at the University of Warwick for high-temperature #NMR measurements at their 850 MHz instrument. 🧪 Huge thanks to @panaceanmr.bsky.social for making this possible! 🙌 Stay tuned for the data to be published soon... #chemsky

Bettina presented our work on optoionics at the Swiss Chemical Society Spring Meeting 2026. A vibrant meeting in the beautiful town of Fribourg. Thanks to #swisschemicalsociety, Ali Coskun (@coskunlab.bsky.social) and colleagues for the great organization and for making this such a memorable event!

Felicitaciones a Bettina! Congratulations to Bettina for being awarded the Elhúyar-Goldschmidt award from the Spanish Society of Chemistry (RSEQ)! 🎉🥳🇪🇸

Real Sociedad Española de Química (RSEQ)@rseq-quimica.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🏆¡Ya es oficial! Premios de la Real Sociedad Española de Química 2026 ¡Enhorabuena! ➡️ shre.ink/LaH8

🚀 Our team was on the move, visiting #Analytica 2026 at #MesseMuenchen . 📍 A small delegation from @lotschgroup.bsky.social and @thdept-fhi-mpg.bsky.social was exploring new technologies for #labs, #analytics and #automation .🧪🔬🦾 Who else was here? #chemsky #automation

Bettina gave a talk at ISOCS-26 at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (quimicas.ucm.es). An inspiring and memorable visit - thanks so much to Prof. Luis Sánchez Marín, the Dean Prof. Teresa Villalba Díaz, the entire faculty board, and all colleagues for their wonderful hospitality!

Impressive visit at EMAP @kit.edu! 🛠️ @lotschgroup.bsky.social, @map91.bsky.social & @fhi-mpg.bsky.social enjoyed exchanging on lab automation with Prof. Colsmann’s group. Inspiring infra built from scratch! Helpful for our AMDL & SolBat projects. 👏 #SolBatCenter #AMDL #KIT #automation

Check out the secrets of our little copper "trees" from our recent publication in this piece by @e-conversion.bsky.social. 🌲🌲 #chemsky

e-conversion - Cluster of Excellence@e-conversion.bsky.social · 6mo ago

These copper “trees” may look fragile, but they reveal their true strength in turning CO₂ into valuable products. Even more interesting: they act as precatalysts, as researchers from @lotschgroup.bsky.social discovered. www.e-conversion.de/copper-dendr... @mpifkf.bsky.social

Honored to contribute to the 15th anniversary collection of Chemical Science! 🎉 In our new commentary, we revisit our 2014 work and reflect on how COFs have evolved from early photocatalytic concepts to today’s advanced materials. pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

A reflection on ‘A hydrazone-based covalent organic framework for photocatalytic hydrogen production’: teaching sponges new tricks

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are a unique class of porous materials built entirely from organic building blocks. As such, COFs unite the tunability of molecules with the robustness and optoelect...

pubs.rsc.org

🚨 New in Angewandte Chemie: We report COF–CNT core–shell nanohybrids that dramatically improve catalytic site utilization in molecular catalysts for CO₂ electroreduction and unlock up to 100× higher TOF for CO production. ⚡️ Check it out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... #chemsky

Bonn, what a week! 📍 So glad we got to be part of the #HäKoConference2026 again this year — inspiring talks and amazing science. Already looking forward to next year! 🧪🤝✨ #chemsky