PhD Student Melanie Mitchell from Helmholtz Institute Münster Wins Poster Award for the Development of Innovative Polymer Electrolytes
A major step towards high-performance solid-state batteries: Melanie Mitchell receives poster award at the ESPE-2 conference in Uppsala for her work on novel amorphous polymer electrolytes.
04 July 2025 – For her outstanding work on the development of novel polymer electrolytes for solid-state batteries, PhD Student Melanie Mitchell from Helmholtz Institute Münster of Forschungszentrum Jülich was awarded the poster prize at the international European Symposium on Polymer Electrolytes (ESPE-2) held in Uppsala, Sweden. Her work was recognized with the first place.
Innovative Brush Polymers
The award-winning poster, titled "Amorphous Brush Polymer Electrolytes for Li-Metal-based Solid-State Batteries," presented new findings on the synthesis and characterization of fully amorphous, molecularly tunable brush polymers. These innovative electrolytes exhibit improved ionic conductivity (> 8 × 10⁻⁵ S/cm), high lithium transference numbers (up to 0.57), and compatibility with high-voltage cathodes (NMC 811) and lithium metal anodes.
High-Energy Solid-State Batteries
A unique feature of these polymers is their previously underexplored polymer backbone with customizable sidechains, enabling targeted solutions to major challenges of conventional polymer-based solid electrolytes – such as crystallinity, low conductivity, and poor interfacial stability. The results mark a significant step toward the development of next-generation high-energy solid-state batteries with lithium metal anodes.
This research is part of the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space’s (BMFTR) funded competence cluster FestBatt and was carried out in collaboration with PD Dr Diddo Diddens and supervised by PD Dr Gunther Brunklaus and Prof. Dr Martin Winter at Helmholtz Institute Münster.
We warmly congratulate Melanie Mitchell on this well-deserved recognition and are proud to see her research in the field of polymer electrolytes gaining international acclaim!
