Ken Jenewein

PhD Student

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k.jenewein@fz-juelich.de

tel: +49 (0)9131 85-20735




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The sun is a renewable and clean natural resource. Harvesting its energy offers a sustainable alternative to the current fossil fuel-based society for powering many industrial and consumer sectors. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an emerging field for directly storing solar energy in chemical bonds. Semiconductor materials acting as light absorbers must meet a vast number of requirements (bandgap, band edge position, charge transfer kinetics, earth abundance, low cost, …) to efficiently convert water into hydrogen and oxygen especially on a large scale. Although extensive research is conducted world-wide, there is yet a material to be discovered that satisfies all of the stringent conditions. In this light, high-throughput (HT) methods in synthesis and characterization present a promising route to accelerate material discovery in this field.


My research is centered around the automated synthesis of photoelectrocatalyst libraries suitable for solar fuel applications coupled with stability measurements under photoelectrochemical operation. Here, a scanning flow cell (SFC) coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) aides in the detection of dissolution products during irradiation and electrochemical experiments. This can help unravel degradation mechanisms occurring under real-world conditions.

 



2020–present Doctoral Student at the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen Nürnberg for Renewable Energy, Erlangen, Germany
2019 Working Student at Kunkel+Partner Ingenieure GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany Topic: Multiphysical 3D mod-el of zinc-air batteries
2018 Visiting researcher at Macromolecular Materials Group, Dr. Andrew Magenau, Philadelphia, USA Topic: Functionalization-induced self-assembly via thiol-epoxide “click” chemistry
2018 Exchange student in Material Science and Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA
2017-2018 Research assistant at University of Applied Sciences Münster, Prof. Michael Bredol, Germany Topic: Synthesis of carbon nanotube/zinc sulfide-nanocomposites
2017-2020 M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Münster, Germany Thesis: Development of novel ORR alloy catalysts for PEM fuel cells at Robert Bosch GmbH
2017 Product development internship at Kotec Corporation, Wakayama, Japan
2013-2016 B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Münster, Germany Thesis: Development of low-loaded cathode catalyst layers for PEM fuel cells at Zentrum für BrennstoffzellenTechnik GmbH