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2 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Das Forschungszentrum Jülich betreibt interdisziplinäre Spitzenforschung und stellt sich drängenden Fragen der Gegen-wart. Mit seinen Kompetenzen in der Ma-terialforschung und Simulation und sein-er Expertise in der Physik, der Nano- und Informationstechnologie sowie den Bio-wissenschaften und der Hirnforschung entwickelt es die Grundlagen für zukünf-tige Schlüsseltechnologien. Damit leistet das Forschungszentrum Beiträge zur Lösung großer gesellschaftlicher Heraus-forderungen in den Bereichen Energie und Umwelt, Gesundheit sowie Informa-tionstechnologie.
Das Forschungszentrum Jülich geht neue Wege in strategischen Partnerschaf-ten mit Hochschulen, Forschungsein-richtungen und der Industrie im In- und Ausland. Mit mehr als 5.000 Mitarbeiter-innen und Mitarbeitern gehört es als Mit-glied der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft zu den großen interdisziplinären Forschungszen-tren Europas.
Gründung 11. Dezember 1956 Gesellschafter Bundesrepublik Deutschland (90 Prozent)Land Nordrhein-Westfalen (10 Prozent)Stammkapital 520.000 Euro Erlöse 557 Millionen EuroFläche 2,2 Quadratkilometer Mitarbeiterinnen und MitarbeiterGesamt 5.236Darin enthalten: Wissenschaftler 1.658(davon Doktoranden 469)Technisches Personal 1.662Auszubildende & Praktikanten 303(Stichtag 31.12.2012)
Gastwissenschaftler 860 aus 40 Ländern
Vorstand Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem (Vorsitzender) Karsten Beneke (Stellvertretender Vorsitzender) Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt (Mitglied des Vorstands) Prof. Dr. Harald Bolt (Mitglied des Vorstands)
AufsichtsratMinisterialdirektor Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher (Vorsitzender)
Wissenschaftlicher BeiratDr. Heike Riel (Vorsitzende)
Wissenschaftlich-Technischer RatProf. Dr. A. Wahner (Vorsitzender)
Das Forschungszentrum Jülich auf einen Blick
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 3
Forschungszentrum Jülich pursues cut-ting-edge interdisciplinary research ad-dressing the pressing issues of the pres-ent. With its competence in materials science and simulation, and its expertise in physics, nanotechnology and informa-tion technology, as well as in the bio-sciences and brain research, Jülich is developing the basis for the key technol-ogies of tomorrow. In this way, Forschungszentrum Jülich helps to solve the grand challenges facing society in the fields of energy and the environment, health, and information technology.
Forschungszentrum Jülich is also ex-ploring new avenues in strategic partner-ships with universities, research institu-tions and industry in Germany and abroad. With more than 5,000 employ-ees, Jülich – a member of the Helmholtz Association – is one of the large interdis-ciplinary research centres in Europe.
Founded 11 December 1956PartnersFederal Republic of Germany (90 %)Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia (10 %)Share capital € 520,000Revenue€ 557 millionArea2.2 km2
StaffTotal 5,236Including:Scientists 1,658 (inc. PhD students 469)Technical staff 1,662 Trainees & students on placement 303(As of: 31.12.2012)
Visiting scientists860 from 40 countries
Board of Directors Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem (Chairman) Karsten Beneke (Vice-Chairman) Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt (Member of the Board) Prof. Dr. Harald Bolt (Member of the Board)
Supervisory BoardMinisterialdirektor Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher (Chairman)
Scientific Advisory CouncilDr. Heike Riel (Chairman)
Scientific and Technical CouncilProf. Dr. A. Wahner (Chairman)
Forschungszentrum Jülich at a Glance
4 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
17 Highlight Energy Research
25 Knowledge Management
Creating knowledge, imparting it, sharing it, and using it – these are the elements of effec-tive knowledge management at Forschungs-zentrum Jülich. We pursue our aim of sustain-able development with the sustainable campus project that targets both science as well as each individual’s daily work.
Contents
Annual Report 2012
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This year’s Annual Report is also available as an e-paper with links to multimedia content:www.fz-juelich.de/portal/EN/Press/Publications/annualreports/_node.html
Forschungszentrum Jülich is continuously expanding its energy research to lay the scientific and technical foundations for the transformation of the energy system. A major priority is to explore material sys-tems for the sustainable, safe and secure provision of energy in the future.
5 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Forschungszentrum Jülich at a Glance 2
Preface by the Board of Directors 6
Chronology 8
Highlight Energy Research 17
• Next-Generation Batteries 18
• Innovative Material for Fuel Cells 20
• Smart Material for Solar Cells 21
• Recharging After Midnight – Study on Electromobility 22
• Fuels from Green Electricity, Carbon Dioxide, and Water –
Interview with Christian von Olshausen 23
Knowledge Management 25
Our Responsibility: The Sustainable Campus 26
Our Business: Knowledge 27
Creating Knowledge
Achieving and Publishing New Insights 28
Faulty Folding – Catastrophic Consequences 30
Designing Molecular Data Storage 32
Accolades 34
Third-Party Funding 36
External Involvement and Platforms 38
Computer Simulation on a Royal Level 43
Personnel 44
Imparting Knowledge
Training with Prospects 48
Early-Career Scientists 50
Sharing Knowledge
Knowledge Worldwide 54
Facts & Figures 57
Operation Brain: The Human Brain Project 62
Above the Clouds – No Limits in Climate Research 63
Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) 64
JARA-FAME: Discovering Elemental Building Blocks and Forces 65
Using Knowledge
Jülich Know-How in Industry and Society 66
Research for Practical Applications 67
Appendix 71
Finances 72
Bodies and Committees 76
Organization Chart 78
Contact 80
Publication Details 81
6 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Preface by the Board of Directors
Enormous research effort is required to ensure that we will be able to satisfy society’s future demand for energy in a
climate-smart and sustainable manner. Forschungszentrum Jülich will therefore concentrate to an even greater degree on laying the scientific and technical groundwork for the transformation of our energy system, particularly in terms of material systems for energy provision.
In 2012, our commitment to this strategy was reflected in the significant expansion of energy research at Jülich. With the reorganization of this field of research, the number of subinstitutes involved in energy research increased from six in the former Institute of Energy research to a total of ten in its newly founded successor, the Institute of Energy and Climate Research. New areas include the research field of fundamental electrochemistry. Jülich energy research thus benefits from the creation of additional leadership posi-tions and, in the future, new young investigators groups. It will also profit from energy-relevant research projects in other institutes of Forschungszentrum Jülich.
More resources are planned for this field, particularly in the area of key technologies. Overall, we are investing tens of millions in the expansion of our energy research infrastructure. In the coming funding period of the Helmholtz Association, Forschungszentrum Jülich plans to increase the funds for energy research in the field of Energy alone by more than a third to a sum of € 76.5 mil-lion. We want to consolidate our position as a leading German research institution
in exploring material systems for the provision of energy in the future – and we want to do so internationally.
Selected examples of such new ma-terials are presented in this Annual Re-port. They include innovative steel for fuel cells and a smart material mix con-taining silicon for solar cells. New stor-age technologies are also of utmost im-portance, because renewables are not always available when they are urgently needed. Together with Helmholtz part-ners and selected universities, Jülich
scientists are working on a number of projects to ensure the greatest opera-tional safety possible, increase the performance and lifetime of storage systems, and reduce the material requirements and costs. Concepts for sustainable mobility are also important to make the transformation of the ener-gy sector a reality. Jülich scientists have published a comprehensive study on the impact that the political target of six million electric cars on German roads in the year 2030 will have on the electricity grid and the climate.
Forschungszentrum Jülich is involved in the entire value chain of research and development – from the very first
“Forschungszentrum Jülich is involved in the entire value
chain of research and development – from the very first
laboratory experiment to technology transfer to industry.”
laboratory experiment to technology transfer to industry. In this Annual Re-port, you will also read about how a company uses renewable energies to produce fuels from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and water, employing know-how from Jülich.
On Forschungszentrum Jülich’s cam-pus, we have also committed to the sus-tainable use of energy and other re-sources and established the Sustainable Campus staff unit. The first projects, such as energy-efficient new buildings
and a bike-friendly campus, were already implemented in 2012.
Forschungszentrum Jülich thus high-lights the pivotal role of energy research – and plays an important part in key forward-looking projects in European science. For example, the Human Brain Project was selected in early 2013 as a ‘flagship’ in the EU programme Future and Emerging Technologies. With fund-ing to the tune of up to € 100 million per year, researchers from 23 countries are planning to simulate the human brain on a supercomputer of the future. Their goal is a better understanding of the brain, which will help to improve the diagnosis and treatment of brain
7
The Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt and Karsten Beneke (from left to right)
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Karsten Beneke (Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem(Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt(Member of the Board of Directors)
Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt(Member of the Board of Directors)
diseases. Jülich scientists are adding to this project their expertise in brain re-search and know-how in supercomput-ing, together with the regional research partners in the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA), the universities of Düsseldorf and Wuppertal, as well as the German Research School for Simu-lation Sciences (GRS).
In order to meet changing require-ments for Jülich’s role in the inter-national research arena, modern committees and organizational struc-tures are needed. In November 2012, the new Articles of Association were signed, which equip Forschungszentrum Jülich with more freedom, flexibility, and transparency. They facilitate cooperation
with other scientific institutions and with commercial enterprises. The Super-visory Board also instituted an inter-national Scientific Advisory Council that will advise Forschungszentrum Jülich in the future.
March 2012 to March 2013
Chronology
Printing Bioelectronic Chips
21 March 2012 | The journal Advanced Functional Materials publishes a paper by scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich and Sony Deutschland GmbH that makes it to the front page. The researchers present a method to cheaply and easily produce electronic circuits with sensitive polymers or biological molecules. The procedure involves a skilful combination of nanoimprint and stamping technologies that only require the biomolecules to withstand room tempera-ture and normal pressure.
Insight into the Formation of Plaques
20 April 2012 | Diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob involve a striking amount of deposits of clumped protein in the brain, referred to as amyloid plaques by experts. In the journal Science, an international team headed by Jülich scientist Philipp Neudecker reports that they have observed an important intermediate stage in the formation of these plaques with the help of NMR spectroscopy. This incorrectly folded protein state only exists for a few thousandths of a second (see ‘Faulty Folding – Catastrophic Consequences’ on p. 30).
Electrochemistry on the Atomic Level
29 April 2012 | In the journal Nature Materials, researchers from the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) and Japanese colleagues present a new method for investigating electrochemical metallization memory cells (ECMs) on the atomic level. ECMs could potentially succeed today’s computer memory technology because, in principle, they are able to switch in a faster and more energy-efficient manner.
8 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Tailor-Made Nanomagnets
29 April 2012 | The journal Nature Physics publishes research results that pave the way towards tailor-made nanomagnets for future information technology. On a copper surface, researchers from the University of Hamburg arranged individual iron atoms in patterns. Jülich scientists calculated the magnetic properties of these structures using a self- developed method from theoretical physics.
Study on Synaesthesia
30 May 2012 | There are people who see numbers in colours or taste words: in synaesthetes, sensory impressions are linked to each other in an extraordinary way. In the Journal of Neuroscience, scientists from Jülich and Munich report that in synaesthetes, certain networks are indeed more strongly linked than in those who do not have this gift. They discovered this by means of structural magnetic resonance imaging.
Simulating a Proton Race
6 June 2012 | Jülich researchers have simulated the proton migration on the cell membrane that is important in the formation of ATP, the main energy source of cells. The sim-ulation provides an explanation for the high speed of the protons measured by the cooperation partner in Linz (Aus-tria). The scientists discovered a previously unknown bound-ary layer along which protons can move practically unimped-ed without becoming detached from the membrane surface. They report on their results in the journal PNAS.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 9
10 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Attack on Tuberculosis Pathogens
25 June 2012 | Biotechnologists from Jülich and Birmingham have decoded the structure of an enzyme that is indispen-sable for tuberculosis pathogens. The researchers report in PNAS that they identified two regions where the new group of antibiotics attack. The pathogens of tuberculosis, one of the most frequently occurring infectious diseases worldwide, are increasingly resistant to common antibiotics.
Cheap Catalyst
10 June 2012 | In the journal Nature Materials, scientists from Jülich, Dresden, Berlin, Munich and Budapest present a cheap alternative to a catalyst made of the expensive noble metal palladium, which promotes an important reaction in the production of polyethylene. The new catalyst is a complex intermetallic compound consisting of aluminium and iron. Polyethylene is the plastic material of which the largest quantities are produced worldwide.
Haemoglobin in the Neutron Beam
13 June 2012 | Haemoglobin in red blood cells transports oxygen from the lungs to the entire body in humans as well as in chickens, crocodiles, and platypuses. As neutron beam measurements by an international team headed by Jülich researcher Dr. Andreas Stadler show, the haemoglobins in these animals differ in their flexibility. This means that they are perfectly adapted to each animal’s body temperature,which is 33 °C in platypuses and 42.8 °C in chickens, for example. The researchers published their results in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
When Seals Become Untight
19 June 2012 | The daily Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reports on rubber seals that last for longer than thought. Simulations on Jülich supercomputer demonstrated that only 42 % of the area between two surfaces must be in contact to make the seal impermeable for liquids – instead of at least 50 % as suggested by previous theories.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 201210
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 11 11
Successful Mission for Climate Research
23 July 2012 | The Zeppelin NT lands in Friedrichshafen having measured air quality above the Netherlands and the Mediterranean for around seven weeks. Forschungszentrum Jülich coordinated the measurement campaigns, which were part of the EU project PEGASOS. The scientists were able to collect plenty of high-quality data that promise new findings on the process of particle formation and the self-purification of the atmosphere.
Tracking Down Brain Metastases
7 August 2012 | Malignant tumours such as lung or breast carcinoma often cause metastases to form in the brain. When these metastases are treated by radiotherapy, the radiation may lead to changes in the tissue. Scientists from Jülich, Aachen, and Cologne publish a patient study on this topic in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. It shows that the radiation damage can be distinguished from new metasta-ses using the FET-PET method for diagnosis.
Force Meter for Molecules
16 August 2012 | In the journal Physical Review Letters, Jülich scientists present an experimental method of deter-mining the minute adhesive force of individual molecules on a surface using an atomic force microscope. They were able to precisely determine the contributions of the van der Waals forces and other types of bonds.
Biologically Active Without Water
2 August 2012 | Proteins are tiny biological machines that catalyse processes in cells or lend support to tissue. The journal JACS publishes the results of an international team of researchers that demonstrated, partly with Jülich instru-ments at neutron sources, why proteins with a polymer shell also function without water. These proteins move in a similar manner to proteins covered by a layer of water.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
12
New Research Aircraft
20 August 2012 | The research aircraft HALO is officially put into operation during an event in Oberpfaffenhofen. Prof. Andreas Wahner, head of the Scientific Advisory Committee for HALO, is in attendance. The first of six flights in the TACTS mission starts after the event. Three measuring instruments from Jülich are part of the mission recording the concentration of important greenhouse gases and their exchange in the atmosphere (see ‘Above the Clouds – No Limits in Climate Research’, p. 63).
Bolstered Energy Research
29 August 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich coordinates the Helmholtz Energy Materials Characterization Platform (HEMCP), for which it receives project funding to the tune of € 6.5 million from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The six research institutions involved in HEMCP will study innovative materials for efficient energy conversion technologies and new options for energy storage – drawing primarily on methods that will provide information on structural, electronic, and chemical properties under operating conditions.
Start of Long-Term Test
6 September 2012 | Jülich researchers put into operation a new 20 kW demonstration system for combined heat and power units with solid oxide fuel cells. These systems can produce electricity and heat for residential and industrial buildings with considerably higher overall efficiency than large power stations. They will initially be operated con-tinuously at a constant output for several thousand hours, followed by dynamic tests with load changes.
Semiconductors Turned Magnets 14 October 2012 | In Nature Materials, an international team including physicists from Forschungszentrum Jülich publish an article that answers the question of how mag-netism emerges in gallium manganese arsenide at low tem-peratures. They examined the semiconductor with an innova-tive method at the world’s most powerful synchrotron facility in Japan. This method could also help to identify materials that are semiconducting and magnetic at room temperature and therefore interesting for future information technology.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Where Caffeine Takes Effect
23 October 2012 | Die Welt and other newspapers publish articles on findings by Jülich researchers who demonstrated that the stimulating effect of coffee unfolds primarily in areas of the cerebrum that are responsible for complex cognitive association and evaluation processes. The reports focus on the fact that caffeine acts in those regions of the brain that are affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
Keynote Lecture
12 November 2012 | At Jülich’s end-of-year ceremony, 300 guests from politics, science, and industry listen to Prof. Thomas Lippert’s keynote lecture at the Rhineland Regional Museum in Bonn. He discusses how high-performance computing has changed science and what new findings are made possible by supercomputers. Computer simulations can build bridges between theory and practice in fields such as climate research, energy research, and brain research, and have become indispensable.
Collapse under Thermal Pressure Calculated
12 November 2012 | Capsules with a diameter of a few micro- or even nanometres are being discussed as possible vehicles for transporting drugs to specific organs. According to computer simulations described by scientists from Jülich and Harvard in the journal PNAS, heat-related molecular movements adversely affect the stability of such capsules, which is why they collapse more easily under pressure than previously predicted.
Molecular Spirals
24 October 2012 | Thread-like molecules, such as DNA, form spirals when they flow through microscopically small channels. Jülich scientists provide explanations for the forces that bring about this deformation in the journal Physical Review Letters. Understanding the flow behaviour of such molecules is important for the development of medical test disks that can be used to cheaply examine tiny amounts of blood.
13
Soot as a Climate Threat
23 January 2013 | The impact on climate change of soot, which is also referred to as black carbon, is almost twice as great as previously believed. The Swiss daily news-paper Neue Züricher Zeitung and other media report on this finding by an international group of researchers including Forschungszentrum Jülich. This makes soot the second biggest factor contributing to anthropogenic climate warming after carbon dioxide.
Network for Plant Research
23 January 2013 | Thomas Rachel, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Research, announced funding worth more than € 35 mil-lion at the launch of the German Plant Phenotyping Network (DPPN). In addition to Forschungszentrum Jülich, Helmholtz-zentrum München (HMGU) and the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research at Gatersleben (IPK) are also involved in DPPN. In the network, the partners plan to develop primarily non-invasive technologies for plant research and breeding.
Molecular Magnets
24 January 2013 | The journal Nature publishes the results of an international team of researchers including three physicists from Jülich. The scientists have produced a thin layer system made of cobalt and organic molecules that can serve to store information by means of magnetism. They are therefore taking another step towards the vision of molecular spintronics, a technology that could potentially succeed current information technology (see ‘Designing Molecular Data Storage’, p. 32).
Europe’s Fastest Computer
14 February 2013 | The supercomputer JUQUEEN is offi-cially put into operation during an event at Forschungs-zentrum Jülich. It has a peak performance of almost six quadrillion arithmetic operations per second and is there-fore the fastest supercomputer in Europe at the time of its launch. It is also one of the most energy-efficient supercom-puters in the world. It was funded by the Helmholtz Associ-ation and – with equal amounts from the federal and state budgets – the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 201214
Environmentally Friendly Auxiliary Power Unit
19 February 2013 | Jülich scientists present a system with high-temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cells (HT-PEFCs) that supplies trucks with power in a particularly efficient, environmentally friendly, and quiet manner. Operated on diesel or kerosene, this unit delivered an electrical output of 5 kW in tests. Long-distance trucks or refrigerated trucks for frozen goods, for example, require 3 kW to 10 kW of energy for air conditioning and cooling – comparable to the require-ments of a multi-family house.
New Simulation Laboratories
26 February 2013 | The Simulation Laboratory (SimLab) Terrestrial Systems is launched. The Simulation Laboratory Neuroscience was already inaugurated in January. The Sim-Lab Terrestrial Systems includes Jülich geoscientists, and the SimLab Neuroscience brain researchers, who in both cases also work on simulation methods and algorithms for supercomputers. Their main task, however, is to help other scientists from their discipline make optimum use of the supercomputers.
PET Centre Opened
7 March 2013 | Jülich’s new Centre for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is inaugurated. It brings together scientists, doctors, and patients under one roof and rapidly incorporates results from neurological research into clinical practice. PET delivers images of the brain that can help to diagnose Alzheimer’s early, to improve the diagnosis of tumours, and to develop new active ingredients.
15
Ozone Layer on the Road to Recovery
28 February 2013 | One of the main results of the EU project RECONCILE, which is now completed, is good news: accord-ing to recent findings, the ozone layer over the North Pole should recover by the end of the century. Scientists from Jülich and their colleagues from 35 research institutions and universities in 14 countries spent four years i nvestigating the chemical process of ozone depletion in great detail.
Highlight Energy Research18 Next-Generation Batteries
20 Innovative Material for Fuel Cells
21 Smart Material for Solar Cells
22 Recharging After Midnight – Study on Electromobility
23 Fuels from Green Electricity, Carbon Dioxide, and Water
17
18 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
New types of batteries that are more powerful than those available today are the key to the energy supply of the fu-
ture. Power from wind or solar energy can only be generated depending on the weather instead of on demand, so that the expansion of renewable energies re-quires options for storing large amounts of energy and rapidly making them avail-able again. The lithium-air battery is a candidate for such energy storage, because theoretically, it can achieve 50 times the energy density of current lithium-ion batteries.
“The use of lithium does, however, involve certain difficulties: it reacts violently with atmospheric humidity or water. Furthermore, the metal is in short supply and will soon become more expensive if demand increases sharply,” says Jülich scientist Prof. Rüdiger Eichel. This is where he sees major advantages for an alternative: silicon-air batteries.
Silicon is obtained from sand and re-serves are practically inexhaustible. The silicon-air battery consists of nontoxic and environmentally compatible compo-nents: one pole, the anode, is made of silicon. At the other pole, the cathode, molecular oxygen is ‘reduced’ to oxygen ions, as the experts say (see graphic). The oxygen does not have to be carried along in the battery, but is taken up from the surrounding air during the dis-charge process. Such batteries would therefore be smaller and more light-weight than conventional batteries and could store more energy in little space.
In order to fully exploit the potential of this new type of battery, the scien-tists have yet to overcome a number of hurdles. Eichel and his team from Fun-damental Electrochemistry at the Insti-tute of Energy and Climate Research are working closely with the inventors of the silicon-air battery at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology. The Jülich scien-
tists are exploring above all the reac-tions inside the battery which prevent it from providing as much energy during the discharge process as expected the-oretically. They discovered that manga-nese dioxide, which is currently utilized at the cathode as a catalyst, reacts with the liquid electrolyte of the battery. This has two undesirable consequences. Firstly, the activity of the catalyst parti-cles is reduced. Secondly, the particles become bigger, which probably causes them to clog the pores at the electrode, so that less oxygen can pass through. In the meantime, the scientists have dis-covered that tricobalt tetroxide (Co3O4) makes a more effective catalyst.
The researchers from Jülich and Haifa also made another, very surprising dis-covery. “It used to be considered obvi-ous that if metal-air batteries did not function as desired then the cathode was the main culprit,” says Eichel. But the scientists demonstrated that in silicon-
Next-Generation BatteriesAt the moment, lithium-ion batteries are the state of the art for storing as much energy as possible in as little material as possible. Jülich scientists are developing environmentally friendly and robust batteries that have even higher energy densities – and do not require limited raw materials.
Silicon in sand and oxygen in the balloon: Prof. Rüdiger Eichel shows symbolically that the raw materials for silicon-air batteries can be found almost anywhere.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 19
energy was launched in September 2012 and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Since then, the Jülich scientists have already tested a variety of materials and designs for the metal-metal oxide storage systems and identified a few combinations that are particularly suitable. “We have also integrated storage systems into fuel cell stacks and demonstrated that they work in principle and can be charged and dis-charged several times,” says project coordinator Dr. Norbert H. Menzler from Materials Synthesis and Processing.
When the battery is charged (left image) with power from surplus wind energy, for example, the metal oxide is reduced to metal, and the hydrogen oxidizes. The electrical voltage applied externally ‘drives’ the steam that is formed towards the cathode, where it is reduced to hydrogen. The oxygen ions migrate through the electrolyte towards the anode. There, molecular oxygen is formed and released into the air. During discharging (right image), this process is reversed: the battery absorbs oxygen and the oxygen ions migrate towards the fuel gas electrode, where hydrogen is oxidized to water and the oxygen partial pressure in the closed fuel gas chamber increases. This causes the metal to oxidize.
When the battery discharges, silicon is oxidized to silicon ions. The released electrons flow from the silicon anode through a power cable to a nickel mesh on the cathode. There, molecular oxygen is reduced to oxygen ions. At the same time, silicon ions migrate through an ionic liquid and react with oxygen ions at the cathode, forming silicon dioxide.
air batteries, it is primarily processes at the silicon anode that currently inhibit battery discharge. This constitutes an entirely new starting point for improve-ments.
The high-temperature batteryJülich scientists from the Institute of Energy and Climate Research are also working on another innovative type of energy storage. It promises similar advantages as the silicon-air battery. The materials are cheap and hazard- free, they have a high storage density, and oxygen is taken from the surround-ing air while the battery discharges and is released again during charging.
However, this energy storage medium of average to high capacity is quite distinct from a silicon-air battery. The concept is based on solid oxide fuel cells, which have been developed and fabricated at Forschungszentrum Jülich for many years. In future high-tempera-ture metal-metal oxide batteries, these fuel cells will be used not only in their standard operating mode, in which they directly and efficiently convert chemical energy into electricity. Instead, they will also be operated in reverse mode – referred to as electrolysis mode – in order to convert the excess electric energy that is produced at times by
wind turbines into chemical energy. This chemical energy can then be stored by reducing a metal oxide to a metal. When the battery is discharging, the metal in the storage medium reacts with oxygen to form metal oxide again, and the system delivers power in the fuel cell mode. For the charging and discharging cycles to work, the battery must be operated at temperatures of more than 650 °C.
The research project MeMO for the development of high-temperature ener-gy storage systems based on metal- metal oxides for short- and mid-term storage of volatile renewable excess
Silicon anode
Cathode: porous carbon
and catalyst
Teflon layer
OxygenO2
O2-
O2-
RTIL electrolyte (room temperature, ionic liquid)
Current flow e-
Nickel mesh
Si4+
Anode
Metal oxide
Metal
Fuel gas chamber
» Discharging
Oxygen
H2
e-
Fuel cell mode
O2-
O2-H2O
CathodeElectrolyte
» Charging– +
Electrolysis mode
Cathode
Metal oxide
Metal
Fuel gas chamber
Oxygen
H2
O2-
O2-H2O
Anode
At the launch of the MeMO project: Thomas Rachel (3 rd from left), Parliamentary State Secretary to the Fed-eral Minister of Education and Research, Prof. Harald Bolt, member of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich (2 nd from left), as well as Dr. Hans Peter Buchkremer (left) and Dr. Norbert Menzler (right), both from the Institute of Energy and Climate Research.
Silicon-air battery High-temperature metal-metal oxide battery
Special connecting plates are needed to join solid oxide fuel cells together in a system that produces electricity in an efficient and climate-smart manner. In cooperation with the company Outokumpu VDM, Jülich scientists have developed a material that fulfils all of the requirements these interconnects must meet. The partners were awarded the 2012 Steel Innovation Prize for their work.
Innovative Material for Fuel Cells
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have a high efficiency: they convert more than half of the energy contained in natural gas
or hydrogen into electricity. Research-ers at Jülich are advancing the practical application of this resource-conserving and climate-smart energy technology. For example, they developed a demon-stration system for SOFC combined heat and power units, which they put into operation in 2012. Combined heat and power units can be used for the decentralized and efficient generation of heat and electricity for residential and industrial buildings. SOFCs are promis-ing candidates for supplying power in trucks, cars and ships.
To ensure that such systems achieve sufficiently high voltages, the SOFCs within them are electrically connected in series. Conducting interconnect
plates join the individual cells and give the system the necessary mechanical stability. In 2001, Prof. Willem Quadak-kers from Jülich’s Institute of Energy and Climate Research began to cooperate with Outokumpu VDM, aiming to identify a material for the interconnects capable of withstanding operating temperatures between 700 °C and 900 °C for periods of thousands of operating hours and more. The research partners quickly succeeded in developing a steel alloy that expands in a similar manner to the SOFC electrolyte when heated and also forms an electrically conductive protec-tive layer. Outokumpu VDM markets the steel under the trade name of Crofer® 22 APU. A significant disadvantage of this material, however, is that producing it requires expensive vacuum technology because it can only contain very small amounts of silicon.
“In order to overcome this drawback, we used a metallurgic trick,” explains Quadakkers. The researchers increased the fraction of silicon in the steel alloy and simultaneously added small amounts of niobium and tungsten. Together, the three elements form a special compound that disperses very finely in the steel as precipitation. “This has two direct positive effects,” says Quadakkers. Firstly, the precipitates improve the stability of the steel at high temperatures even further. Secondly, the harmful internal oxidation of the silicon is suppressed. This means that the steel can contain enough silicon to be produced using a conventional melting process. Crofer® 22 H has also been launched on the market.
Researchers analyse the surfaces of the new steel alloy for fuel cells (SOFCs) to determine whether chemical changes occur.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Interconnects join individual planar solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) together to form a stack. The stack in this picture has a power output of 5 kW.
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 21
At the end of 2012, it cost no more than 20 cents to gen-erate a kilowatt hour of solar electricity, which is less than
what households pay on average for the same quantity of electricity. In order to reduce the costs even more, research-ers throughout the world are working on saving material and energy in solar cell production and on improving the current yield. To this end, different concepts are being pursued, including thin-film and wafer solar cells. Last year, scientists from Jülich’s Institute of Energy and Climate Research showed that both types of cell benefit from an innovative material.
The material is a mixture of micro-crystalline silicon and amorphous silicon oxide. Microcrystalline substances com-prise tiny crystals in which the atoms are regularly ordered, while amorphous materials do not have a regular struc-ture. “According to our investigations, layers of the material mixture form channels of microcrystalline silicon which conduct electric current, while the amorphous silicon oxide ensures that the layers have a high permeability to light,” says Jülich photovoltaic expert Dr. Friedhelm Finger.
Mixtures of silicon and silicon oxide can be used in the intermediate reflec-tor and in the semiconducting layers of a thin-film solar cell where small amounts of impurities like boron or phosphorus increase the number of mobile electric charge carriers. These ‘doped’ layers are like a sandwich enclosing the semiconducting layer with no impurities. And the more light they let through to this intermediate layer, the better. The Jülich researchers have demonstrated that their innovative material is beneficial in this regard.
They have also prepared dozens of thin-film solar cells with the material and determined their stable efficiency – a measure of how effectively a cell in continuous operation converts light into electric current. With a value of 11.8 %, these solar cells performed much better than other Jülich cells of a similar design without the new material and than commercially available modules, which achieve an efficiency of at best 10 %.
More material and energy are required to produce solar cells with crystalline silicon wafers compared to thin-film solar cells, but they also achieve much higher efficiencies. Using a special type of construction, referred to by the specialists with the abbrevia-
tion ‘HIT’ (heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer), Jülich scientists achieved a maximal efficiency of 19 % in 2012. All contact layers were composed of the innovative material mixture. “This demonstrates the potential of silicon oxide materials,” says Finger’s colleague Kaining Ding. And there are still ways of increasing efficiency even further – for example, texturing the wafer surfaces.
The perfect material for many layers in a solar cell would be electrically conductive like silicon and simultaneously transparent like quartz glass. Jülich scientists incorporate a mixture of substances in their high-tech solar cells that bring them much closer to achieving this ideal.
Smart Material for Solar Cells
Kaining Ding (left) with the prototype of a small wafer solar cell containing layers made from an innovative mixture of materials. Thin-film solar cells (in the foreground) could also benefit from this material in the future.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
A team headed by Jülich scientist Jochen Linßen developed a conclusive scenario of a future energy supply in order to study the integration of electric cars into the German electricity grid. The scientists presented their final report in 2012.
Recharging After Midnight – Study on Electromobility
The current German federal government is backing electric vehicles in an effort to protect the climate. Its concept envis-
ages that the Germans will be driving one million electric cars by 2020 and six million in 2030. Jülich’s experts for energy systems analysis worked with partners from science and industry on the NET-ELAN project, investigating the impact of this political target on the electricity grid, the energy industry, and the climate.
According to the study, the use of electric vehicles would lead to a reduc-tion of almost 5 % in the consumption of mineral oil products in the entire trans-
port sector by 2030. The result: the emission of the greenhouse gas CO2 would be reduced by between five and eleven million tonnes in Germany. “This figure has such a wide range because the electricity used to charge the batter-ies of the electric vehicles comes from wind energy and the amount of electrici-ty it generates fluctuates depending on weather conditions,” explains Jochen Linßen from the Institute of Energy and Climate Research, lead author of the NET-ELAN final report.
The study, which involved scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich, TU Berlin, the Centre of Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW), Ford Forschungszentrum Aachen, and Vattenfall Europe AG, also came to the conclusion that the market intro-duction of electric cars as planned by the federal government is technically feasible. If the cars are recharged at defined times, Germany will not have to
construct any additional power plants or adapt the transmission grids.
In another respect, however, the ca-pacity of the currently planned grid will not be sufficient. Not all of the excess electricity from wind energy can be transported to the conurbations and thus to the charging stations for electric cars. The excess electricity comes from planned wind farms both onshore and offshore in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. On windy days, they will produce more power than will be immediately required. On calm days, however, they will not be able to cover the demand.
The study presents a solution that would allow electric cars in 2030 to consume up to 60 % of the electricity required to charge them from otherwise unused wind energy. In addition to ex-panding the grid to combat bottlenecks, the following strategy will help: electric cars should be recharged throughout the night between the hours of midnight and six in the morning. During this time, the grid is not used to capacity as the demand for electricity is low and the potential excess electricity from wind energy is particularly high.
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Will the electric cars on German roads be recharged using excess electric energy from wind turbines in 2030? The NET-ELAN study provides an answer.
Dr. Jochen Linßen, expert in energy systems analysis at Forschungszentrum Jülich
What are the steps in your method for producing fuels from green electricity, CO2, and water?The first and most important step is high-temperature steam electrolysis. We are developing a facility for this purpose that splits steam into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from renewable sources. Compared to the splitting of liquid water, this procedure saves a lot of energy. In the second step, carbon dioxide (CO2) is reduced to carbon monoxide (CO) with hydrogen. In a third step, we then synthesize liquid hydro-carbons – the fuels – from CO and additional hydrogen. Heat is released in this process, which we use to produce hydrogen again for the first step. The efficiency of the entire process is about 50 % for the current state of the art, which means that only half of the elec-tric energy would be converted into fuels. We want to increase this efficiency to up to 70 %, first and foremost by improving the steam electrolysis step.
How is Forschungszentrum Jülich involved?Jülich is refining the electrolysis cell based on high-temperature fuel cells in cooperation with other partners. Forschungszentrum Jülich has proven expertise in this field. The main aim is to test the individual layers that make up the cell. Although the project was only launched in 2012, what we have already achieved with the support of Forschungszentrum Jülich is impressive: for example, we have significantly reduced the degradation of the cells, that’s the decline in performance when cells are operated.
Producing petrol from the greenhouse gas CO2 and renewable energy – that sounds fantastic. But wouldn’t it make more sense to use the electricity directly to drive electric cars? After all, energy is lost in each additional conversion step.We don’t want to compete with electric drives, because it’s certainly much better to use electric energy directly. But it looks like it will hardly be possible to operate aircraft, ships, or large trucks on energy from batteries. Liquid fuels
will continue to provide advantages for these applications due to their high energy densities.What it comes down to is that our method, which will not be launched on the market on the refinery scale before 2020, allows us to store electricity in the form of fuels. In a few years’ time, electricity storage will become increasingly necessary because power supply will fluctuate considerably due to the transformation of the energy sector.
Sunfire GmbH, based in Dresden, is developing a procedure using renewable energies to efficiently produce petrol, diesel, or kerosene from carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). In doing so, the company is banking on know-how from Jülich – in a collaborative project fund-ed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. An interview with Christian von Olshausen, Chief Technical Officer at Sunfire.
Fuels from Green Electricity, Carbon Dioxide, and Water
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 23
Christian von Olshausen, CTO at Sunfire GmbH, outlines the company’s cooperation with Forschungszentrum Jülich.
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Knowledge Management
26 Our Responsibility: The Sustainable Campus
27 Our Business: Knowledge
28 Creating Knowledge
48 Imparting Knowledge
54 Sharing Knowledge
66 Using Knowledge
SustainableCampus
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 201226
Our Responsibility: The Sustainable CampusForschungszentrum Jülich believes in sustainable development – not only as a subject of research, but also in its everyday work. Its goals are:
• researching sustainably, i. e. using resources efficiently,• research for a sustainable society, i. e. working on topics for the future, taking into account our social responsibility, and• research that will prove sustainable, i. e. addressing topics with continuity.
€ 932,000 in this measure alone. If 51 % of electricity can be saved, this will reduce CO2 emissions by about 146 tonnes per year;
• The bike-friendly campus with cycle lanes, bike stands, and the bicycle gate, which is now open all day and enables cyclists to take the short route to the town of Jülich. As of May 2012, the Visitor Service also offers bike tours under the motto ‘Energy & Climate’ for visitors to Forschungs-zentrum Jülich;
• The new building for the JuLab Schools Laboratory. It has been equipped with modern smart meters for the consumption of electric ener-gy. All the measured data are record-ed electronically. The aim of the pilot and demonstration project is the dai-ly calculation of the carbon footprint of groups working in individual rooms. The educational objective is to pro-
This will bring about changes in the different fields of work and the direct surroundings of each employee, whose active support
will make Forschungszentrum Jülich an attractive and forward-looking place for sustainable research.
Initial progress can already be seen on campus, including:• Energy-efficient new buildings hous-
ing offices and laboratories, some of which have replaced old building stock. The PET centre, new labs, offices, and infrastructure build-ings, and an extension for the Ernst Ruska-Centre are all examples of the new way of construction on campus;
• An increase in energy efficiency, for example with a modernized district heating network and a changeover of street lighting on campus to energy- saving LED lamps. Forschungs - zen trum Jülich is investing a total of
mote sustainable thinking at an early age;
• The online discussion forum ‘Sustain-able Campus Arena’. It invites all em-ployees of Forschungszentrum Jülich to discuss sustainable developments on campus and in research. They can contribute their ideas and put forward suggestions. The forum provides an opportunity for employees to become engaged in lively discussions on top-ics such as mobility or energy-effi-cient work in offices and laboratories.
The Sustainable Campus staff unit head-ed by Dr. Peter Burauel was established in July 2012 to bring together all topics on campus related to sustainability. Its task is to support the institutes and infra-structure divisions in implementing a step-by-step transformation process that will make the campus more economical-ly, ecologically and socially sustainable.
Marco Braun (right) and Christoph Krahe in the heating plant of Forschungszentrum Jülich. They are responsi-ble for energy controlling and analysing the heat balances of different types of building on campus.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 27
Our Business: Knowledge
Creating knowledgeForschungszentrum Jülich fared extremely well once again in 2012 in terms of the most important indicators of research achievements. For example, Jülich scientists published more than 1,400 scientific papers in high-impact specialist journals and the total amount of funding acquired from the German Research Foundation (DFG) increased to almost € 6.6 million. Our committed personnel policy is a cornerstone of our research success. For example, Forschungszentrum Jülich hosted a conference on the topic of equal opportunities as a competitive edge on the international scene.
Imparting knowledgeThe excellent research infrastructure at Forschungszentrum Jülich offers highly qualified professionals an ideal start for a career in science. Together with universities in the region, Forschungszentrum Jülich established new master’s degree programmes; graduate schools are creating opportunities for PhD projects that are also popular with PhD students from abroad. Scientists from Jülich who recently completed their PhDs were particularly successful in the Helmholtz Associa-tion’s new postdoc programme in 2012.
Sharing knowledgeForschungszentrum Jülich cooperates closely with partners from science and industry, both on a national and an international level. An outstanding example of scientific cooperation in Europe is the Human Brain Project. In this flagship project in the EU programme Future and Emerging Technologies, researchers from 23 countries are working together to simulate the human brain on a supercomputer. Experts in the Jülich Supercomputing Centre are developing new supercomputers for this purpose, which will be able to perform a quintillion arithmetic operations per second (exaflop/s).
Using knowledgeJülich’s expertise in central fields of research – such as energy and health as well as biotechnology – its excellent infrastructure and its know-how in key technologies make Jülich a sought-after partner for industry. Current examples show that Jülich scientists are involved in very application-relevant research: they are developing active substances against Alzheimer’s, an environmentally friendly emergency power supply for mobile base stations, as well as a method for scanning electronic waste for valuable raw materials.
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Achieving and Publishing New InsightsForschungszentrum Jülich has a new central reference systems for the research findings it has published: JuSER (Jülich Shared Electronic Services). Jülich’s Central Library developed the system in a cooperation with other institutions. It unites the former database of scientific publications by Forschungszentrum Jülich employees (VDB) and the open-access repository JUWEL. JuSER opens up new options for cooperation between scientists. They can now easily exchange their own manuscripts as well as publications of others, comment on either, and make them available to a group of colleagues.
Jülich publications in the last five years
TotalIn peer-reviewed journals (of which co-authored with researchers from other institutions)
Books, other publications
PhD theses, habilitations
2008 1,725 1,034 (753 = 72.8 %) 600 91
2009 1,720 1,133 (837 = 73.9 %) 526 61
2010 1,834 1,048 (770 = 73.5 %) 686 100
2011 2,115 1,363 (1.013 = 74.3 %) 651 101
2012 2,233 1,452 (1.100 = 75.8 %) 688 93
Journals in which Jülich researchers published most frequently in 2012 (as of: 31.12.2012).
Journal Number of publications
Physical Review B 61
Physical Review Letters 35
Applied Physics Letters 30
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 28
Geophysical Research Abstracts 28
PLOS one 25
Nuclear Fusion 23
Journal of Physics/Condensed Matter 23
NeuroImage 21
Nature Publishing Group scientific journals 15
Science 3
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
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Exemplary publications 2012
Bioelectronics circuitsAdvanced Functional Materials, 2012, 22/6, pp. 1129–1135DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201101925» see ‘Chronology’, p. 8
Misfolded proteinsScience, 2012, 336/6079, pp. 362–366DOI: 10.1126/science.1214203» see ‘Faulty Folding – Catastrophic Consequences’, p. 30
Electrochemical systems for ITNature Materials, 2012, 11, pp. 530-535DOI: 10.1038/NMAT3307» see ‘Chronology’, p. 8
New catalystNature Materials, 2012,11, pp. 690–693DOI: 10.1038/NMAT3307» see ‘Chronology’, p. 10
Tuberculosis pathogensPNAS, published ahead of print, 25 June 2012DOI: 1073/pnas.1205735109» see ‘Chronology’, p. 10
Data transport on the nanoscalePhysical Review Letters, 2012, 108, 197204DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.197204www.fz-juelich.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/UK/EN/2012/12- 05-08SpinSpirals.html
Simulation of biomolecule helix formationPhysical Review Letters, 2012, 109, 178101DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.178101» see ‘Chronology’, p. 13
Caffeine and brain receptorsJournal of Nuclear Medicine, 2012, published ahead of print, 10 September 2012DOI: 10.2967/jnumed.112.105114» see ‘Chronology’, p. 13
Silicon-air batteryChemSusChem, 2012, 5/11, pp. 2278–2285DOI: 10.1002/cssc.20120019» see ‘Next-Generation Batteries’, p. 18
Molecular magnetic data storageNature, 2013, 493, pp. 509–513DOI: 10.1038/nature11719» see ‘Designing Molecular Data Storage’, p. 32
30 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Faulty Folding – Catastrophic ConsequencesThe doctor Alois Alzheimer, who was the first to describe the disease named after him more than 100 years ago, saw them under the microscope: clumped protein deposits in the brains of deceased individuals who had suffered from Alzheimer’s. To this day, researchers do not fully understand why protein molecules form insoluble structures referred to amyloid plaques that eventually cause the brain cells to die off. However, an important intermediate step in this process was observed with unprecedented precision by an international team of researchers headed by Dr. Philipp Neudecker from Forschungszentrum Jülich and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. They published their findings in the renowned journal Science in April 2012.
Every protein is born as a thread-like molecule in which amino acids are beaded together like a string of pearls.
However, as soon as it is formed, the thread folds within seconds into a
three-dimensional shape. This is by no means a matter of coincidence: the exact shape of the complete protein molecule is a decisive factor in it fulfilling its respective role as an enzyme, antibody, muscle fibre, or
one of the many other functions of proteins in our body.
Philipp Neudecker from the Institute of Complex Systems studied the folding process of a protein molecule required for signal transduction in
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cells. He was particularly interested in a short-lived intermediate stage that occurs during the folding process be-fore the protein is eventually complete. This process is a delicate balancing act. The intermediate stage can either result in the functional molecule, or it can produce a faulty version that tends to bond with others. As soon as this fatal procedure has started, more and more protein molecules attach them-selves to the initially tiny aggregate – the dreaded amyloid fibrils are formed. Unless they are removed by the cell’s ‘rubbish collection’, these fibrils cause it to die. In their place, the brain then contains the protein lumps that Alois Alzheimer saw under the microscope.
Neudecker therefore took a closer look at the intermediate stage that
This image shows the correctly folded molecule.
hangs in the balance between the cor-rectly functioning protein and the dan-gerous fibrils. For this purpose, he used a method of nuclear magnetic reso-nance spectroscopy, or NMR for short, that was refined specifically for short-lived molecule states. It shows the exact three-dimensional shape of the volatile structure that exists only for a few thousandths of a second. And Neudecker’s team were successful in observing the molecule in detail during this decisive moment. “This state is necessary for the protein to fold proper-ly within less than a second,” he ex-plains. “However, when things go wrong, this stage can also cause fibrils to be formed.”
In his experiments, performed mostly at the University of Toronto, Neudecker discovered that the fate of the ‘border-line cases’ is decided by the arrange-ment of only four amino acids in the molecule consisting of a total of 59 components. They form the end of the protein string and are usually aligned almost in parallel with the first amino acids of the molecule. In this way, no other proteins can bind to the molecule.
In the intermediate state, it is pre-cisely this last protective section of the molecule that is not yet folded. The beginning of the protein thread is open and unprotected, so that other protein molecules can attach themselves to it. This can be the beginning of a fatal chain reaction where small fibrils initial-ly form, then larger ones, and finally plaques.
Risk increases with ageThe researchers are still unsure as to why the balancing act sometimes ends in disaster. “The formation of the initial aggregates – a process referred to as nucleation – is luckily a relatively rare event,” reports Neudecker. “It all comes down to how many molecules come together of the protein variant which tends to aggregate.” However, with increasing age, there is an increased probability of such molecules accumu-lating, and repair mechanisms are no longer as effective. “Environmental impacts, such as natural or artificial chemicals, are suspected to be partly
responsible for the formation of amyloid fibrils, as are genetic defects,” says Neudecker.
He hopes that his findings will con-tribute to enabling an early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and ultimately the development of effective drugs. In September 2012, Philipp Neudecker received the Ulrich Hadding Research Award from the Biological-Medical Research Centre (BMFZ) of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf for his work.
This intermediate stage occurs during the folding process of a protein molecule that tends to clump under unfavourable conditions.
32 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Designing Molecular Data StorageJülich physicists use computer simulations to explain the magnetic and electronic properties of a thin layer system made of cobalt and organic molecules. They are thus paving the way towards molecular components for future information technology. The group, which includes international research partners, have published their findings in the journal Nature.
lead to very different physical proper-ties. However, the exact number and arrangement of atoms is difficult to control in metals and semiconductors – the materials that components are made of today.
One way out of this dilemma could be ‘molecular electronics’ with nano-metre-scale components made up of molecules. Molecules comprise a fixed number of atoms, can be designed specifically for various purposes, and can be produced cost-effectively in an identical form over and over again. There are indications that the magnetic moment of these electrons – the ‘spin’ – could also exploited in addition to their electric charge, making it possible to implement entirely new functions, such as non-volatile RAM or quantum computers.
Magnetic sandwichMolecules for such ‘molecular spintron-ics’ must have specific magnetic proper-ties. However, these properties are sensitive and frequently vanish into thin air if the molecules are attached to inorganic materials, which are required to conduct electric current. A team of researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich, the University of Göttingen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA, Ruder Boškovic Institute in Croatia, and IISER Kolkata in India have now discovered a material system that does not behave according to this principle.
It is produced by applying small organometallic molecules referred to as zinc methyl phenalenyl (ZMP) onto a cobalt substrate. The researchers demonstrated that ZMP (which is not magnetic in itself) forms a magnetic
Up until today, processors and storage media have been made smaller and smaller in order to increase the performance
of computers. However, this strategy is about to reach the limits imposed
by physics. Components that are too small become unstable, making them unsuitable for secure data storage and processing. One reason is that in components consisting of only a few atoms, even an atom more or less can
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‘sandwich’ together with the cobalt surface. The sandwich can be switched back and forth as desired between two magnetic states using magnetic fields. In this process, the electrical resistance of the layer system changes by more than 20 %. Such ‘magnetoresistive effects’ can be used to store, process and measure data. However, to generate them in molecular systems, researchers previously required temperatures well below -200 °C.
The new layer system, by contrast, is highly magnetoresistive even at a com-paratively high temperature of -20 °C. “This is a considerable step forward on the way to developing molecular data storage and logic elements that work at room temperature,” says Dr. Nicolae Atodiresei from Forschungszentrum Jülich. Together with the team from Forschungszentrum Jülich’s Peter Grünberg Institute and the Institute for Advanced Simulation, he developed a physical model that explains the proper-
ties of the material. The scientists per-formed the sophisticated calculations required for this on the Jülich supercom-puter JUGENE. Although the researchers used up to 8,000 processors, the calcu-lations still took a total of around three months.
The result: the key requirement is that the molecule must be practically flat. Two molecules each then form a stack and attach themselves closely to the cobalt surface. The cobalt and the bottom molecule form the magnetic sandwich, while the upper molecule acts as a ‘spin filter’. Its primary task is to allow electrons with spins of a certain orientation to pass through. This orien-tation can be controlled with a magnetic field, for example.
Experienced and successfulThe Jülich physicists’ simulations bene-fited from the fact that they had suc-cessfully been working on deriving the properties and functions of organic
molecules on surfaces from the laws of quantum mechanics alone for some time. Earlier publications and confer-ence papers on this field of research prompted the cooperation of this suc-cessful international team. They aroused the interest of scientists from India and the USA, who work experimentally and analytically, in the theorists from Jülich.
The scientists are now planning to further optimize their material based on their findings. Nicolae Atodiresei is daring in his optimism: “I think I know how to develop sandwich systems that are magnetoresistive even at room temperature.” The researchers are also planning to modify their system in such a way that the spin filter effect can be controlled by electrical fields and light pulses as well.
Nature (doi:10.1038/nature11719)
Above: One ZMP molecule attaches itself directly to the cobalt surface (gold), and a second one above it at a greater distance. Right: The layer system formed can be used to store magnetic informa-tion, depicted here as ones and zeros. The green and red arrows show the orientation of the magnetic moments (spins).
34 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 20124
Accolades
1 | Member of the German Ethics Council – Prof. Katrin Amunts2 | Admitted to Das Junge Kolleg of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Humanities – Dr. Dr. Svenja Caspers3 | Winner of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award – Dr. Dmitry A. Fedosov4 | Recipient of the Minerva Prize – Prof. Joachim Treusch
Prof. Katrin Amunts, director at the In-stitute of Neuroscience and Medicine, was appointed to the German Ethics Council. The Ethics Council consists of 26 members. It is concerned with the expected consequences arising in con-nection with research and new develop-ments, in particular in the life sciences and their application to humans. Its mission is to inform the general public and encourage public debate. It also
prepares official statements and recom-mendations for the German Bundestag and the federal government.
Dr. Dr. Svenja Caspers from the Insti-tute of Neuroscience and Medicine was named as a member of Junges Kolleg of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Admission is one of the most important accolades for early-career scientists in North
Rhine-Westphalia. Junges Kolleg was set up with financial support from the Mercator Foundation. Up to 30 mem-bers – outstanding young scientists of all disciplines – receive a research scholarship worth € 10,000 annually.
Dr. Dmitry A. Fedosov from the Institute of Complex Systems was awarded the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, one of the most valuable German science prizes. He was honoured by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for developing a simulation method that can be used to describe and predict blood flow under various conditions. Fedosov will use the prize money, some € 1.3 million, to establish his own research group focusing on exploring the differences in blood circulation in healthy tissue and tumours.
Prof. Joachim Treusch, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich from 1990 to 2006, received the 2012 Minerva Prize from Jülich’s Museum Association. The prize is awarded every two years to personalities who have earned it for their work at the interface between culture, science, and industry for the town and region of Jülich.1 2
3 4
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35 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Other accolades
Name Accolade
Dr. habil. J. Sabine Becker Central Institute of Engineering, Electronics and Analytics
Thermo Fisher Scientific Award in Plasma Spectrochemistry
Prof. Harald Bolt Member of the Board of Directors
New member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and full member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW)
Prof. Sebastian M. Schmidt Member of the Board of Directors
Appointment to the Chair of Theoretical Physics, RWTH Aachen University
Prof. Dan E. DemcoInstitute of Neuroscience and Medicine
Member of the Physical Sciences section of the Romanian Academy
Dipl.-Ing. Friedrich KäßInstitute of Bio- and Geosciences
Prize for the best young scientist’s contribution at the 2nd BioProScale Symposium in Berlin
Thomas LatzkoInstitute of Bio- and Geosciences
Best Paper Award at ESM 2012 in Essen
Prof. Werner LehnertInstitute of Energy and Climate Research
Member of the Consultative Council of the Evgeni Budevski Institute of Electrochemistry and Energy Systems at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Dr. Eric von Lieres Institute of Bio- and Geosciences
2012 award for young university lecturers at the meeting of young lecturers of DECHEMA (Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology)
Guiseppe MercurioPeter Grünberg Institute
Max Auwärter Award from the Austrian Physical Society for his doctoral thesis
Arun NandaInstitute of Bio- and Geosciences
Poster prize at the Microbial Stress Conference in Belgirate (Italy)
Dr. Philipp NeudeckerInstitute of Complex Systems
Ulrich Hadding Research Award from the Biological-Medical Research Centre (BMFZ) of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Dipl.-Biol. Steffen Ostermann Institute of Bio- and Geosciences
Best poster prize at the 3rd International Conference on Acetic Acid Bacteria (AAB2012) in Córdoba (Spain)
Prof. Martina PohlInstitute of Bio- and Geosciences
Added to AcademiaNet, a database of excellent women scientists
Dr. Nicole Paczia Institute of Bio- and Geosciences
Prize for the best doctoral thesis from the society of friends and benefactors of the University of Bielefeld
Ulrich PätzoldInstitute of Energy and Climate Research
Young Scientist Award at the Spring Conference of the European Materials Research Society
Dr. Giulia RossettiJülich Supercomputing Centre
Friedrich Wilhelm Prize 2012 from RWTH Aachen University for her thesis at the German Research School for Simulation Sciences
Dr. Solvej SiedlerInstitute of Bio- and Geosciences
Poster prize in the category Metabolic Engineering for Chemicals and Materials at the Metabolic Engineering X Conference in Biarritz (France)
Prof. Peter TassInstitute of Neuroscience and Medicine
Ordinary member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA)
Robert Westphal Institute of Bio- and Geosciences
Poster prize at the Trends in Enzymology 2012 conference in Göttingen, and poster prize at Biocat 2012 in Hamburg
Prof. Wolfgang Wiechert Institute of Bio- and Geosciences
New member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech)
Project funding from national and international public sources (thousands of euros)
2008 62,058
2009* 139,785
2010 75,346
2011 91,757
2012 86,674
36 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
As in previous years, a significant share of the research budget was acquired as third-party funds supplementing Forschungszentrum Jülich’s regular budget in 2012. The fact that the German federal and state governments as well as the German Research Foundation (DFG) and commercial companies support research at Jülich shows that they believe in its sustained benefits for society and important innovations for industry.
Third-Party Funding
The number of projects at Jülich funded by DFG
increased to 41 in 2012:
Research training groups 12 DFG priorities 19 Collaborative research centres 10
DFG project funding (thousands of euros)
2008 2,813
2009 3,297
2010 4,166
2011 5,472
2012 6,592
Project funding balance sheet 2012*
Thousands of euros
Federal government• of which in research fields
44,94925,476
State government• of which in research fields
8,6408,640
DFG• of which in research fields
6,5926,527
Other national sources• of which in research fields
11,35610,545
Total national• of which in research fields
71,53751,188
EU• which in research fields
15,13714,232
Sum total• of which in research fields
86,67465,420
Project funding from national public sources (thousands of euros)
2008 49,023
2009* 124,912
2010 67,414
2011 71,239
2012 71,537
Project funding
* In 2009, national project funding was significantly higher because it included funds for the installation of a petaflop computer.
Note:• Federal government project funding includes € 19,338,000 for the operating costs of ILL.• DFG funding does not include DFG income amounting to € 67,000 that were generated
within the framework of private service contracts and therefore do not count as operating income of Forschungszentrum Jülich.
* See also p. 74 on project funding.
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 37
Chemist Prof. Paul Kögerler prevailed in the competition between the cream of young research talents in Europe.
to the tune of € 4.3 million for the six collaborative projects.
MOLSPINTRON – Molecular magnets for next-generation computers | Chemist Prof. Paul Kögerler received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) in 2012. With the project ‘Synthetic Expansion of Magnetic Molecules Into Spintronic Devices’ (MOLSPINTRON), the Jülich scientist successfully held his own in the competition between the best young research talents in Europe. He will re-ceive around € 1.5 million in funding for his research over a period of five years. The molecular magnets Kögerler is working on may one day revolutionize microelectronics. The concept is based on the joint use of magnetic and electronic quantum states of individual magnetic molecules. Kögerler is pursu-ing this goal in close cooperation with groups at the Peter Grünberg Institute and RWTH Aachen University as part of the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance.
The research field of key technologies was the area with the most significant third-party funding in 2012.
Exemplary projects funded by third parties in information technology
DEEP – Parallel computing with mil-lions of processors | The EU project DEEP (Dynamical Exascale Entry Plat-form) is developing a new prototype for supercomputers of the next generation. The project partners are testing a special, energy-efficient computer architecture that could serve as a model for future exascale computers. With a quintillion arithmetic operations per second, such an exaflop/s computer would be about a thousand times faster than today’s supercomputers. Experts from the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) are coordinating the project involving 16 partners from 8 countries. The project was launched in December 2011 and will receive funding of more than € 18 million over a period of three years, including € 8 million from the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research.
NVIDIA Application Lab – Cooperation for brain research and more | In June 2012, Forschungszentrum Jülich and the international US company NVIDIA announced the establishment of the NVIDIA Application Lab. In this way, Forschungszentrum strengthens cooperation with companies working on the development of technologies for exascale computers. The partners want to considerably accelerate scientific simulations, particularly in the area of neuroscience, using graphics processing units (GPUs). Applications from other areas, such as astrophysics, particle physics, materials science, and bio-sciences will also be optimized for
supercomputers with graphics proces-sors. If all processing units are used efficiently, it will also be possible to save a significant amount of energy.
BaSiGo – New safety concepts for large-scale events | The project BaSi-Go aims to improve our understanding of the behaviour of large crowds of people at public events. For this pur-pose, Forschungszentrum Jülich is carrying out laboratory experiments as well as simulations of the movements of individuals at large-scale events. Its goal is to develop a computer-assisted planning tool for organizers, local authorities, and law enforcement ser-vices. The project is coordinated by the University of Wuppertal and is one of six similar projects in the Research for Civil Security programme. This priority pro-gramme is being funded with a total of some € 20.2 million by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Industry is also making available funding
Third-party funding for Jülich key technologies (thousands of euros)
2009* 85,324
2010 16,192
2011 26,125
2012 31,272 (incl. biotechnology)
Walter Mundt-Blum (front left), vice president of NVIDIA’s Professional Solution Group in Europe, and Prof. Thomas Lippert (front right), director at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), sign the cooperation agreement.
* In 2009, national project funding was significantly higher because it included funds for the installation of a petaflop computer.
38 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Forschungszentrum Jülich provides the research community with access to unique instruments and facilities ranging from the JUQUEEN supercomputer to state-of-the-art tools for nanotechnology. Scientists from Jülich also operate top-class research instruments not only on campus, but also at other locations in Germany and throughout the world. In addition, Jülich is active in supporting early-career scientists and its project management organization has two other branch offices in Germany. Forschungszentrum Jülich is represented:• in Aachen through the German Re-
search School for Simulation Sciences (GRS) and the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) (for more on JARA, see p. 64). GRS GmbH is an independ-ent subsidiary of Forschungszentrum Jülich. As a joint graduate school with equal shareholders Forschungszen-trum Jülich and RWTH Aachen Univer-sity, GRS offers programmes for post-
External Involvement and Platformsgraduate students and PhD students in computer science and engineering;
• at the research reactor in Garching near Munich through the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS)*;
• at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laborato-ry (ORNL), USA;
• at the high-flux reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France. Forschungszentrum Jülich is a joint shareholder of ILL along with the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atom-ique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA, France), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France) and the Science and Tech-nology Facilities Council (STFC, UK). Jülich holds 33 % of the shares. This guarantees the participation of the entire German neutron research com-munity in the operation of ILL;
• at Project Management Jülich’s branch offices in Berlin and Rostock-
Warnemünde – PTJ is a largely in-dependent organizational unit of Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH;
• in Düsseldorf, where Technology Transfer runs the head office of the German biotechnology cluster BIO.NRW. This office initiates coopera-
tions between research institutions, companies, investors, and politics on the regional, national, and internation-al level.
As a member of the Helmholtz Associa-tion (HGF), Forschungszentrum Jülich is also represented internationally by the HGF’s offices in Brussels, Moscow and Beijing.
* JCNS is one of the institutes of Forschungszentrum Jülich. It operates neutron scattering instruments at the leading international neutron sources FRM II, ILL and SNS as part of a joint strategy.
German neutron research, which is concentrated at the research neutron source FRM II in Garching, has been given a name of its own. As of February 2013, the successful cooperation between Technische Universität München, Forschungszentrum Jülich and Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG) will be known as the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ).
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 39
Employees at the different locations
412 in Jülich, 269 in Berlin, and 29 in Rostock.
Project Management Jülich
invested € 1.24 billion of funding;
approved around 5,000 new projects; and coordinated some 14,500
projects. The number of employees increased to 710.
In 2012,
Project Management ETN has been work-ing for the federal state of North Rhine- Westphalia for over 20 years and is fully funded through commissions from the federal state. In addition to advising those interested in funding as well as process-ing and approving applications, ETN coor-dinates projects from start to finish.
ETN is responsible for the topics of energy (progres.nrw programme), health and nutrition economy, and is also in-volved in regional and structural develop-ment projects. Important funding meas-ures in 2012 were electromobility and combined heat and power in the energy
Project Management Jülich
Project Management ETN
coordinated more than 700 individual projects
with a total budget of € 460 million,
of which more than € 340 million were grants.
The number of employees increased to 58,
of which almost two thirds are women.
In 2012,
Project Management ETN
In 2012, Project Management Jülich (PTJ) very successfully competed for project management work on the federal and state level. It consolidated its position by taking over research management in the areas of Knowledge and Technology Transfer as well as Research for Sustain-able Development. This highlights the leading position of PTJ as the project management agency with the highest turnover in Germany.
PTJ coordinates research and innova-tion funding programmes in the areas of bioeconomy and life sciences, energy, materials technologies, environment and sustainability, climate protection, marine and polar research, navigation and marine technology, technology transfer and start-up companies, as well as regional technology platforms and clusters. It works on behalf of the Fed-
eral Ministries of Education and Re-search (BMBF), of Economics and Tech-nology (BMWi), for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), and of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMVBS), as well as on behalf of the federal states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, North
Rhine-Westphalia, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, as well as the European Commission. With five nation-al contact points and contributions to numerous European coordination initia-tives, PTJ is active in shaping the Euro-pean Research Area.
Autumn 2012 saw the retirement of Wilfried Wascher, head of Technology Transfer and Start-Up Companies at PTJ for many years. On the occasion of his retirement, Karsten Beneke, Vice- Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich, spoke about Wascher’s special dedication and commitment to the development of the branch office in Berlin, which he headed since 1992.
sector, as well as a call for applications for a programme focusing on the devel-
opment of appropriate care models for old age in the health sector.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 201240
The supercomputers in the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC)
JUGENE/JUQUEEN
Relative numbers according to users JUROPA
The Jülich supercomputers are used extensively by users outside Forschungszentrum Jülich. Computing time is allocated by independent science committees.GCS: Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (association of the three national supercomputing centres JSC, HLRS and LRZ)NIC: John von Neumann Institute for Computing (national allocation body, funded by the three Helmholtz centres Forschungszentrum Jülich, DESY, GSI)GRS: German Research School for Simulation SciencesPRACE: Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (European HPC infrastructure)DECI: DEISA Extreme Computing InitiativeDEISA: Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications (European HPC infrastructure, forerunner of PRACE)
User statistics
In 2012, 2.2 billion processor core hours
were allocated on JUGENE/JUQUEEN,
and almost 125 million on JUROPA
(with the JUROPA processors being more powerful
than the JUGENE processors).
Coveted computing time – overbooking factor
JUGENE/JUQUEEN 2 JUROPA 5
In 2012, within the framework of the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE Tier-0), 21 European projects were calculated on JUGENE/JUQUEEN. Most of the computing time – 48 % – was assigned to basic physics research, followed by the research area of medicine and life sciences – 16 %.
JUGENE/JUQUEEN – Research fields of ongoing European projects (PRACE) 2012
Excellent Platforms
Medicine and life sciences 16
Basic physics research 48
9 Astrophysics
12 Chemistry and
materials science
15 Engineering and energy
Based on the periods 11/2011–10/2012 and 05/2012–04/2013.
Forschungs- 43 %zentrum Jülich
48 % NIC national
2 % NIC internationalPRACE Tier-1 (DECI) 5 %GRS 2 %
Based on the periods 11/2011–10/2012 and 05/2012–04/2013.
Forschungs- 12 %zentrum Jülich
35 % PRACE Tier-0
50 % GCS
GRS 3 %
Based on the periods 11/2011–10/2012 and 05/2012–04/2013.
The Jülich Supercomputing Centre provides scientists and engineers at Forschungszentrum Jülich, universities and research institutions both in Germa-ny and throughout Europe, as well as companies in the commercial sector with access to computing capacity of the highest performance class, assisting them in solving highly complex prob-lems using simulation calculations. The John von Neumann Institute for Comput-ing is responsible for the scientific eval-uation of projects. Jülich’s new super-
computer JUQUEEN was installed during the second half of 2012. It was the first supercomputer in Europe to achieve a peak performance of 5.9 petaflop/s. This means that Forschungszentrum Jülich is currently the best equipped partner in the Gauss Centre for Super-computing (GCS) and takes a leading position in the supercomputing infra-structure of both Germany and Europe.
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 41
* The number of users was lower in 2012 than in the pre-vious years, because an experimental facility (‘Big Karl’) was taken out of operation.
COSY is like a microscope for the components of a nucleus – the protons and neutrons. Ever since the particle accelerator was put into operation in 1993, applications have been made for significantly more beam time than Forschungs zentrum Jülich can actually provide. A Program Advisory Committee made up of internationally recognized physicists from the USA and Europe de-cides which applications be will accept-ed. Applications are submitted by inter-ested scientists from universities abroad and in Germany, as well as by
COSY cooler synchrotron
Jülich researchers. In December 2012, the 2 MeV electron cooler that was planned jointly with the Russian Budker Institute was delivered to Jülich from Novosibirsk. It was installed in the COSY ring in spring 2013 and will be put into operation in summer 2013. It will be used to investigate accelerator physics issues such as electron cooling. These studies will also serve its qualification as an injection cooler for the accelerator ring HSER in the international project FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research).
COSY users
Year Users
2005 350
2006 380
2007 411
2008 432
2009 452
2010 502
2011 460
2012 285*
Ernst Ruska-Centre (ER-C)
Allocated measuring time (days) on electron microscopy instruments of ER-C (three of them in the Titan class)
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Forschungszentrum Jülich 144 243 244 298 297 420
RWTH Aachen University 63 128 164 138 161 138
External users 79 203 284 294 266 463
Servicing and maintenance 82 119 132 132 178 150
ER-C is a facility for atomic- resolution electron microscopy and spectroscopy on the highest inter-national level that is jointly operated Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University. At the same time, it is the first national user centre for high-resolution electron microscopy. Around 50 % of the measuring time on the three Titan microscopes (PICO, TEM, STEM) at ER-C is made available to universities, research institutions and industry. This time is allocated by a panel of experts nominated by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Europe 42%
Rest of world 20% 18% NRW
20% Germany (excluding NRW)
Regional background Regional affiliation of the users of all ER-C electron microscopic instruments in 2012
The PICO electron microscope is almost five metres high and stands on a 200-tonne concrete foundation with air spring damping that protects it from any vibration, which could otherwise distort the ultrahigh-precision measuring results.
42 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
INM focuses on the structure and function of the healthy and diseased human brain. It aims to understand the structural and functional changes caused by neurological and psychiatric disorders and thus to improve their
The MRI scanners at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM)
Use of the 3 T MRI-PET hybrid scanner In clinical trials for this instrument, patients are examined in collaborative projects with different external hospitals.
In 2012, 76 patients from the neurosurgical departments
at the universities of Düsseldorf and Cologne as well as the radiotherapy
department at RWTH Aachen University were examined.
An additional 15 patients from the Department of Nuclear Medicine
at Düsseldorf University Hospital were also examined.
diagnosis and treatment. Scientists work with imaging techniques such as structural and functional magnetic reso-nance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), as well as hybrid systems combining both MRI and PET. Several instruments are at hand in order to generate basic re-search results and to facilitate their
transfer to clinical applications: 9.4 T MRI-PET (research), 9.4 T MRI (animal research), 4 T MRI, PET (re-search and clinical application), and 3 T MRI, 3 T MRI-PET (clinical applica-tion). Some of the state-of-the-art instruments for medical imaging at Jülich are also available to external researchers.
MRI scanners produce high-resolution and high-contrast images of the human brain.
The instruments at the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS)
JCNS operates neutron research instru-ments at leading international neutron sources. For this reason, JCNS is also responsible for the construction and operation of the Jülich instruments at
Beam time (days) at FRM II allocated by JCNS in 2012
Internal users 327
Maintenance/development 326
Training activities 40
269 External users Germany
192 External users EU
92 External users rest of world
Use of the JCNS neutron scattering instruments by external researchers in 2012 (days)
POLI** 29SPHERES 60ILL 6SNS 29
KWS-2 53
70 BIODIFF*
47 DNS
82 HEIDI**
77 J-NSE
74 KWS-1
KWS-3 61
* in cooperation with Technische Universität München (TUM)** operated by RTWH Aachen University
BioDiff Diffractometer for large unit cellDNS Time-of-flight spectrometer with diffuse neutron scatteringHEIDI Single crystal diffractometer on hot sourceJ-NSE Jülich neutron spin echo spectrometerKWS 1 Small-angle scattering facility 1KWS 2 Small-angle scattering facility 2KWS 3 Small-angle scattering facility 3POLI Polarized hot neutron diffractometerSPHERES Backscattering spectrometer with high energy resolutionILL Institut Laue-Langevin, GrenobleSNS Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge (estimate)
the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz research neutron source (FRM II) in Garching near Munich. These instruments are also available to external scientists. In addition, JCNS operates instruments at
the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France, and at the Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge, USA.
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JUQUEEN has taken up residence at Forschungszentrum Jülich. With a peak performance of 5.9 quadril-lion arithmetic operations per sec-
ond and its energy efficiency, JUQUEEN is indeed the queen of European su-percomputers. During its official inau-guration on 14 February 2013, Thomas Rachel, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Research, said, “With JUQUEEN, Forschungszentrum Jülich once again positions itself as a leading institution for highly complex scientific calcula-tions. The supercomputer is an impor-tant step in expanding the European computer infrastructure.”
Jülich’s new supercomputer can be used by scientists from all over Europe. Two thirds of the computing time is allo-cated by two supercomputing collabora-tions. One is the Gauss Centre for Su-percomputing (GCS), an alliance of the
they use the enormous mathematical prowess of Jülich’s supercomputers, but the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) and its ‘SimLabs’ are also perfectly organized to support users. SimLabs (short for Simulation Laboratories) cur-rently exist for biology, plasma physics, neuroscience, climate research, the geo sciences, engineering, and molecu-lar physics and quantum chemistry. SimLabs are groups of JSC staff who have a university degree in the respec-tive subject and also conduct research on simulation methods and algorithms for supercomputers. Their main task is to assist other scientists from their discipline in making optimum use of the supercomputers.
Computer Simulation on a Royal Level
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
three national supercomputing centres in Jülich, Garching, and Stuttgart. The other is the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE). The re-maining third of the computing time is reserved for scientists at Forschungs-zentrum Jülich and the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA).
State Secretary Helmut Dockter from the North Rhine-Westphalia Science Ministry expressed his conviction during the inauguration event for the super-computer that it will also boost North Rhine-Westphalia’s reputation as an at-tractive location for science. “JUQUEEN benefits a number of universities as well as companies in NRW,” said Dockter.
Scientists profit from ideal condi-tions at Jülich for performing their complex climate and atmosphere simu-lations, for example, for creating models of the brain and investigating new materials and particles. Not only can
A glimpse into the inner workings of Forschungszentrum Jülich’s supercomputer JUQUEEN during installation.
44 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
For Forschungszentrum Jülich, a commit-ted personnel policy is a decisive factor for consolidating its leading position in the competition for the brightest minds in science.• The introduction of the online recruit-
ment system JuRS further increased Jülich’s attractiveness for applicants. In mid-September 2012, trial oper-ation of the online recruitment sys-tem JuRS began, initially for training position applications. The systems accelerates application procedures and requires fewer resources, as it reduces the number of paper applica-tions and printouts. In this way, JuRS is also making a contribution to a more sustainable campus (see p. 26).
• Activities to increase the share of women in management positions in science are another priority of
human resource development. These measures include executives at Forschungszentrum Jülich making direct contact with excellent female candidates, and early support for young women executives, for exam-ple through mentoring programmes (see p. 50).
• In November 2012, Forschungs-zentrum Jülich hosted a conference on the topic of equal opportunities as a competitive edge on the internation-al scene, which was organized by the working group ‘Women at Research Centres’ together with the Helmholtz Association. Londa Schiebinger, John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science at Stanford University, opened the conference with a lecture entitled ‘Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, and Engineering’.
PersonnelViews on new ideas and measures for equal opportunities were exchanged in panel discussions.
• A key element of support for parents is opportunities for childcare, which are offered and arranged by Forschungszentrum Jülich for its employees – from an office for par-ents and children, the toddlers group, and the ‘Kleine Füchse’ daycare cen-tre to activities during school holidays. According to a survey on childcare requirements in 2012, parents without exception hope that these services will be further expanded.
Johanna Roussel and Andreas Fischbach from the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences work on the project ‘Gardening with a Cognitive System’ (GARNICS) with a one-armed colleague: the lightweight robot LBR 3.
Overview personnel as of 31.12.2012
AreaNumber as of 31.12.2012
Scientific and technical personnel 3,320
Scientific personnel• incl. PhD students*• incl. professors W3: 44, W2: 40, W1: 9
1,658469
93
Technical staff 1,662
Project management organizations 768
Service staff and administration 691
Undergraduates/postgraduates 118
Scholarship holders 36
Trainees and students on placement 303
Total 5,236
The figures are based on equivalent full-time employees (FTEs); the real number of employees is higher as a result of part-time employment.
Proportion of women employees at Forschungszentrum Jülich
Women as a percentage of total employees Women as a percentage of total senior personnel Women as a percentage of scientific personnel Women as a percentage of salary groups E12 to E15Ü, as well as those paid according to groups AT, B, C, and W (specialist staff)
Proportion of young women
Total percentage young women Percentage women trainees Percentage young women scientists
On Girls’ Day, in which JuLab School Laboratory participated in April 2012, 28 girls and young women learnt about jobs in the areas of science and technology as well as different trades and in IT.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 45
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0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 20122011
Percentage women
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
2007Year 2008 2009 2010 20122011
Percentage women
* A total of 828 PhD students were supervised at Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2012 (cumulative, not as of 31.12.2012).
46 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
AppointmentsProf. Dr. Evgeny Alekseev from the In-stitute of Energy and Climate Research was appointed junior professor for solid-state chemistry of actinides at RWTH Aachen University.
Dr. habil. J. Sabine Becker from the Central Institute of Engineering, Elec-tronics and Analytics held lectures as part of her stay as a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (USA).
Prof. Rüdiger-A. Eichel from the Insti-tute of Energy and Climate Research was appointed to the Chair of Materials and Processes for Energy Conversion and Storage at RWTH Aachen University in accordance with the Jülich model.
Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Fahlke was appointed director at the Institute of Complex Systems – Cellular Biophysics (ICS-4) and professor at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.
Dr. Julia Frunzke, leader of a Helmholtz young investigators group at the Insti-tute of Bio- and Geosciences was ap-pointed junior professor (salary grade W1) for signal transduction and popula-tion heterogeneity in industrial micro- organisms at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.
Dr. Susanne Aileen Funke from the Insti-tute of Complex Systems was appointed professor (salary grade W2) for bioanalyt-ics and molecular biology at Coburg Uni-versity of Applied Sciences and Arts.
Prof. Dr. Werner Lehnert from the Insti-tute of Energy and Climate Research was appointed professor (salary grade W2) for modelling in electrochemical process engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of RWTH Aachen University in accordance with the Jülich model.
Prof. Dr. Andreas Offenhäusser from the Peter Grünberg Institute was ap-pointed visiting professor at the Shang-hai Institute of Microsystem and Infor-mation Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences until 2015.
Prof. Dr. Uwe Rascher from the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences was appointed university professor (salary grade W2) for quantitative physiology of crops by the University of Bonn.
Prof. Dr. Abigail Rhodes-Morrison from the Institute of Neuroscience and Medi-cine was appointed university professor (salary grade W2) for functional neural circuits by Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
Dr. Günter Subklew from the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences was appointed visiting professor at Tongji University Shanghai and became a member of the College of Environmental Science and Engineering.
Prof. Knut Urban from the Peter Grünberg Institute was the first to receive the recently created JARA senior professorship.
Prof. Karl Zilles, former director of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, was appointed a JARA senior professor at RWTH Aachen University.
Nobel Laureate Prof. Samuel C. C. Ting from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spoke about the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment (a particle detector for the measurement of cosmic radiation on the International Space Station) as part of a Jülich Lecture. It was held during the inauguration ceremony for the new JARA-FAME section in January 2013. Photo (from left to right): Prof. Sebastian M. Schmidt, member of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich, Dr. Wolfgang Schroeder, Prof. Rudolf Maier, Prof. Stefan Schael, Prof. Samuel C. C. Ting, Prof. Hans Ströher, Prof. Henning Gast, Prof. Ulf Meißner, and Prof. Achim Stahl.
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 47
Total appointments (as of 31.12.2012)
UniversityJülich model
Reverse model
Total
FH Aachen 8 8
HHU Düsseldorf 11 3 14
RWTH Aachen 37 7 44
Uni Bochum 4 4
Uni Bonn 7 3 10
Uni Duisburg-Essen 1 1
Uni Cologne 7 1 8
Uni Münster 1 1
Uni Regensburg 1 1
Uni Stuttgart 1 1
Uni Wuppertal 3 3
Total 81 14 95
New appointments 2012
UniversityJülich model
Reverse model
Total
HHU Düsseldorf 2 1 3
RWTH Aachen 6 1 7
Uni Bochum 1 1
Uni Bonn 2 2
Uni Cologne 1 1
Uni Stuttgart 1 1
Total 13 2 15
Joint appointments with universities
JARA senior professorship
This table includes only those professors appointed according to the Jülich model and to grades W1, W2 or W3 according to the reverse Jülich model, including GRS.Jülich model: Directors of institutes at Forschungszentrum Jülich are appointed professor in a joint procedure with one of the partner universities and are simultaneously seconded by the university to Forschungszentrum Jülich in order to fulfil their duties as head of institute at Jülich.Reverse Jülich model: Professors whose primary employment is at their university also work as directors of an institute at Jülich (secondary employment).
Prof. Knut Urban was the first to re-ceive the recently created JARA senior professorship. It is awarded by RWTH Aachen University to outstanding scien-tists who have retired and allows them to continue their research both at RWTH Aachen University and at Forschungs-zentrum Jülich. It also aims to promote the exchange of knowledge and cooper-ation between young and experienced scientists. The honour was conferred on the retired director of the Ernst Rus-ka-Centre for Microscopy and Spectros-copy with Electrons at the RWTHtrans-parent event in January 2012. The certificate of appointment was present-ed to him by the rector of RWTH Aachen University, Prof. Dr. Ernst Schmachten-berg, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich, Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem.
The internationally respected neuro-scientist and medical researcher Prof. Karl Zilles was appointed JARA senior
professor at RWTH Aachen University in January 2013. Karl Zilles was director at Forschungszentrum Jülich’s Institute of Medicine from 1998 to 2002 before be-coming director at the Institute of Neu-roscience and Medicine, a post he held until the end of 2012. During this time, he also headed the C. & O. Vogt Insti-tute of Brain Research at Heinrich Heine
University Düsseldorf. Since August 2007, Karl Zilles has also expanded his collaboration with University Hospital Aachen’s Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics within the framework of the newly established brain research alliance, JARA-BRAIN, which he will now continue under the JARA senior professorship.
Their JARA senior professorships allow them to continue working at Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University: Prof. Knut Urban (left) and Prof. Karl Zilles (right).
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Forschungszentrum Jülich’s commitment to providing vocational training for young people in order to meet the demand for highly qualified employees for Forschungszentrum Jülich and beyond highlights the responsibility it assumes for the entire region. With hands-on and high-quality training programmes, often combined with placements abroad, Jülich offers trainees a promising start to their career. Six of the training programmes can even be combined with studies at a university of applied sciences.
Training with Prospects
Those interested in vocational training at Jülich are spoilt for choice: training is provided in 24 skilled occupations in the areas
of science, technology, and business administration, as well as media design. In 2012, Forschungszentrum Jülich also increased the number of places for trainees from 88 to 115. Of the newly hired trainees, 36 took the opportuni-ty of embarking on a dual study pro-gramme.
The high quality of training at Jülich was confirmed once again in 2012: the great majority of trainees passed their final exams with good or very good re-sults. Of the 39 trainees who received their certificates in July 2012 from head
additional ‘Euregio Competence’ qualifi-cation for the first time in 2012, which will improve their chances of finding a job outside of Germany. As part of their training, they completed two work placements abroad at Technisch Instituut Heilig Hart in Hasselt (Bel-gium). Other trainees accepted work placements in Spain, France, and Sweden.
Forschungszentrum Jülich continues to lend support to small and medium enterprises in the region when it comes to vocational training, for example, by offering specialized courses and a coop-erative model of training partnerships. In 2012, 13 new long-term cooperation agreements were signed. Collaboration with the Freshman Institute at Aachen University of Applied Sciences contin-ued: 39 young people gained experience in technical drawing, and in electrical engineering technology, mechanics, and chemistry in English-language intern-ships – ideal prerequisites for going on to university.
Ready for the working world: 28 mathematical and technical software developers (MATSEs) completed their training on 28 September 2012.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
of Personnel, Dr. Mathias Ertinger, 24 achieved the grade of ‘good’ and 8 ‘very good’. Of the 40 who finished in February 2012, 5 were assessed as ‘very good’ and 12 as ‘good’. Four young trainees stood out in particular: Vanessa Derichs, Carsten Graf, Ingo Heimbach and Florian Rhiem were among the best trainees in Germany. The materials tester, the industrial electrician and the two mathematical and technical soft-ware developers (MATSEs) from Forschungszentrum Jülich passed their final examinations with the best marks nationwide.
International competence is sought after in many vocations today. Future industrial mechanics received a certified
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 49
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Dual study programmes – an overview
DurationIHK examination
Bachelor’s degree
Period between IHK exam and bachelor’s degree
Bachelor of Scientific Programming + mathematical and technical software developer (MATSE), IHK
3 years end of 3rd yearafter 6 semesters
approx. 2 months
Chemistry: Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Engineering + chemistry laboratory assistant, IHK
4 years after 3 yearsafter 8 semesters
0.5–1 year
Bachelor of Physical Engineering + physics laboratory assistant, IHK
4 years after 3.5 yearsafter 8 semesters
approx. 6 months
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering + industrial mechanic, IHK
4 years after 2.5 yearsafter 8 semesters
approx. 1.5 years
Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering + electronics technician for industrial engineering, IHK
4 years after 2.5 yearsafter 8 semesters
approx. 1.5 years
Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration + office communications specialist, IHK
3,5 years after 3 yearsafter 7 semesters
approx. 6 months
Bachelor of Applied Sciences, after IHK examination as biology laboratory assistant
2 years parallel to employment, after completion of vocational training
Bachelor of Applied Sciences, after IHK examination as chemistry laboratory assistant
2 years parallel to employment, after completion of vocational training
Places for trainees – new trainees 2012
Laboratory assistants 29 incl. studies 6 Electricians 23 - Metalworkers 12 incl. studies 2 Technical product designers 3 - Office staff 15 incl. studies 3 Math. and techn.
software developers 25 incl. studies 25 Others 8 - Total 115 incl. studies 36 (31,3 %)
Vanessa Derichs (top left), Carsten Graf (top right), Ingo Heimbach (bottom left) and Florian Rhiem (bottom right) were among the best trainees in Germany in 2012. The materials tester, the industrial electrician and the two mathematical and technical software developers from Forschungszentrum Jülich passed their final examinations with the best marks nationwide in their chosen occupations.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 201250
Early-Career ScientistsForschungszentrum Jülich provides an excellent environment to embark on a career in science for young talented researchers from Germany, Europe, and all over the world. Opportunities for students are available in the form of summer schools, structured support is provided during and after the doctoral phase, and early-career scientists can take on responsibility right from the start.
Forschungszentrum Jülich, which supervises more than 120 under-graduate and postgraduate stu-dents every year, is involved in
innovative study programmes. The master’s degree programmes Energy Systems and Technomathematics and
the bachelor’s programme in Scientific Programming were established in coop-eration with Aachen University of Ap-plied Sciences. Together with RWTH Aachen University, Jülich offers the master’s degree course Simulation Sciences as well as the opportunity to
pursue a PhD at the German Research School for Simulation Sciences. A PhD at Jülich is attractive for applicants from all over the world: 29 % of PhD students came from abroad in 2012, including 47 from China, 28 from Russia, and 14 from India.
First-class Jülich postdocs
Look where they’re going – electrons from a different perspective
The Helmholtz Association launched a new programme in 2012 to support scientists who have recently received their PhDs and help them to kick-start their academic careers (www.helmholtz.de/jobs_talente/postdoc_programm/). In a multistage procedure, including external evaluation by international
Explaining one of the enigmas of matter in less than ten minutes – it sounds impossible, but Jülich PhD student Robert Frielinghaus from the Peter Grün-berg Institute pulled off the task with fly-ing colours at the Highlights of Physics science festival in Göttingen. With the help of beer bottles, escalators, and a sprinkling of German comedian Loriot, the 28-year-old physicist explained how ‘Paul the Electron’ moves through tiny nanostructures. The audience was de-lighted and chose him as the winner of the Einstein Slam, a competition for the best short presentation combining scien-tific depth and entertainment value. If you would also like to enjoy Robert Frielinghaus’ presentation (in German), you can find it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=K91Hq2hOqZY.
experts, 37 scientists, of which 22 were women, prevailed in the competition between a total of 86 applicants from Germany and abroad. With seven suc-cessful candidates, Forschungszentrum Jülich is the Helmholtz centre with the greatest number of participants in the programme. They were granted funding
of € 100,000 to € 200,000, which they will receive over a two-to-three-year period to pursue a research project of their choice, with a view to establishing themselves in their field of research. For the initial phase, Forschungszentrum Jülich will provide them with a mentor.
Robert Frielinghaus is able to explain physics in a very entertaining manner, which won him first prize in the Einstein Slam.
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2012 Summer and winter schools
Independent young scientists
Summer and winter schools for students and early-career scientists attracted a
Secure career prospects, early inde-pendent scientific work and excellent working conditions at Forschungs-zentrum Jülich attract outstanding early-career scientists from Germany and abroad. In addition to heading their own young investigators group, they can also gain teaching experience. They are offered a tenured position if evaluated positively in their fourth year. In 2012, two group leaders were given perma-nent contracts. Here, too, it is obvious that Jülich’s young scientists are inter-national: twelve of the young group leaders do not come from Germany, but from Algeria, Belgium, China, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, Serbia, Spain, and Ukraine. Seven of the 20 young investigators group lead-ers are junior professors at a university. In 2012, 40 % of the young investigators groups were headed by women. TANDEMplus, a mentoring programme jointly set up by Forschungszentrum Jülich, RWTH Aachen University, and
total of 531 participants in 2012. About half of them came from abroad. Here,
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) to support young women scientists, was also continued in 2012. The third round started in 2012 and includes five women scientists from Jülich. In addition, two
women scientists from Jülich participat-ed in ‘Taking the lead’, the Helmholtz Association’s mentoring programme in 2012.
too, Jülich’s support for young scientists is obviously not limited to Germany:
Number of young investigators groups in Jülich 2004–2012The figures comprise young investigators groups funded by the Helmholtz Association, Forschungszentrum Jülich, and third parties.
2004 2
2005 4
2006 8
2007 13
2008 12
2009 22
2010 21
2011 22
2012 20
Title Number of participantsof which international participants
Totalof which women
Totalof which women
Summer School Renewable Energies 22 12 22 12
43rd IFF Spring School Scattering Methods for Condensed Matter Research: Towards Novel Applications at Future Sources
261 63 152 not specified
Correlated Electrons 2012: From Models to Materials 77 8 34 4
16th JCNS Laboratory Course – Neutron Scattering 2012
59 22 28 15
8th JARA-FIT Practical Training Course in Nanoelectronics
48 8 not specified not specified
JSC Visiting Students Programme 13 2 4 0
Winter School Hierarchical Methods for Dynamics in Complex Molecular Systems
51 12 22 6
52 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Colloids and computers, research and family – the many worlds of physicist Marisol Ripoll
Today, Ripoll performs research into how tiny particles move in liquids. These mixtures are referred to as ‘colloids’. They play an important role in technolo-gy, for example as paint or drilling fluids, but also in biology, where proteins and cells swim in the plasma. For her stud-ies, Marisol Ripoll doesn’t mix liquids, however, but stands firmly on dry ground: she studies the behaviour of colloids in simulations on supercomput-ers. With these simulations, she hopes to find out how temperature differences in a liquid determine the behaviour of different particles suspended in it. What happens when other factors such as gravity come into play? And how does the chemical composition of the parti-cles influence their swimming behav-iour? “This isn’t just interesting from a theoretical point of view,” she says. Her research group recently filed a patent application for a thermophoretic force
The weather may be better in Spain, but Dr. Marisol Ripoll has never regretted moving from her native country in the south of Europe to Jülich. Her PhD project was an international project carried out at the universities of Madrid and Utrecht. Having just received her PhD, the young physicist came to Forschungszentrum Jülich in late 2002. She has headed her own young investi-gators group at the Institute of Complex Systems since 2007. Jülich’s tenure- track programme, which gives young scientists the opportunity to perform research independently at an early stage, has allowed her to get tenure after her positive evaluation – which means a permanent contract. She sees this as a rather privileged position.
“Even in school I was absolutely fas-cinated by physics,” says Marisol Ripoll. She was indifferent to the question of whether this was a boys’ subject. “I never even considered anything else. Mathematics might have been the only other subject that wouldn’t have been out of the question.” In Spain, she adds, it’s not quite as unusual for a woman to study physics as in Germany. However, it is true there, too, that you will see fewer women the more theoretical the subject and the higher the position.
While it was initially astrophysics – looking at the infinite extent of the uni-verse – that fascinated the student, she soon turned to the smallest of things.
Doctoral studies and more
It is much more than the excellent re-search infrastructure that contributes to the fact that future leaders enjoy work-ing at Jülich – it’s the whole package. For example, Studium Universale (SU), the PhD students’ initiative, organizes events on topics that are not restricted to everyday work at Jülich. These in-clude political questions of general interest and overarching, work-related issues – in March 2013, for example,
they organized a workshop on copyright and plagiarism. SU aims to provide opportunities for PhD students to make contact and exchange ideas, in particu-lar for those from abroad. The Students’ Lounge gegenüber is a place where undergraduates, postgraduates, and PhD students from all disciplines can meet for an informal chat over a cup of free tea or coffee. [email protected]
Dr. Marisol Ripoll came to Jülich from Spain. Here, she conducts research into the behaviour of colloids.
machine, which converts heat into movement, and makes it easier to handle liquids in a controlled manner in minimum spaces.
For Marisol Ripoll, Forschungszentrum Jülich is the ideal place for combining lots of different things: theoretical con-siderations and applied research; her own computer simulations and the practical experiments performed by her colleagues; work and private life. Her partner, who hails from the Netherlands, also works at Forschungszentrum Jülich; their two daughters go to the ‘Kleine Füchse’ daycare centre and are growing up trilingual. “My older daughter recent-ly learnt in the preschool programme what the German words heiß and kalt mean,” says Marisol Ripoll. “She was really excited when I told her that in principle, that’s what I deal with in my work.”
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Involvement of Forschungszentrum Jülich in structured PhD training with partner universities
Lead institution Graduate school/research training group Cooperation/funding More information
AachenAachen Institute for Advanced Study in Computation-al Engineering Science (AICES), graduate school within the Excellence Initiative*
Aachen, DFGwww.aices.rwth- aachen.de
International research training group: Brain-behavior relationship of emotion and social cognition in schizophrenia and autism
Aachen, Jülich, Philadelphia, DFG
www.irtg1328.rwth- aachen.de
Research training group: Biointerface – detection and control of interface-induced biomolecular and cellular functions
Aachen, DFGwww.grk-biointerface.de
Research training group: Biocatalysts using non- conventional media – ionic liquids, organic solvents, supercritical fluids and gases as reaction phases for biocatalytic synthesis (BioNoCo)
Aachen, Düsseldorf, DFG
www.bionoco.rwth- aachen.de
BonnBonn-Cologne Graduate School of Physics and Astronomy, graduate school within the Excellence Initiative*
Bonn, Cologne, DFGwww.gradschool. physics.uni-bonn.de
Research training group: Bionics – Interactions across Boundaries to the Environment
Bonn, DFGwww.bionikgraduate.uni-bonn.de
Düsseldorf BioStruct NRW Research School Düsseldorf, NRW www.biostruct.de
Research training group: Physics of Hot Plasmas Düsseldorf, DFGwww.laserphy.uni- duesseldorf.de/e618/index_eng.html
International research training group: The Dynamic Response of Plants to a Changing Environment
Düsseldorf, East Lansing, DFG
www.igrad-pre.uni- duesseldorf.de
Research training group: Molecular Targets of Aging Processes and Strategies for the Prevention of Aging
Düsseldorf, DFG www.grk1033.uni- duesseldorf.de
Graduate school: iGRASPseed Düsseldorfhttp://igrasp.lwdb.de/welcome
DortmundNRW Research School: Research with Synchrotron Radiation in Nano- and Biosciences
TU Dortmund
www.tu-dortmund.de/uni/Forschung/Nach-wuchsf__rderung/NRW-Forschungs- schulen/index.html
Forschungszentrum Jülich
International Helmholtz Research School of Biophysics and Soft Matter (BioSoft)
Cologne, Bonn/Caesar, Düsseldorf
www.ihrs-biosoft.de
German Research School for Simulation Sciences (GRS): joint training of master’s and PhD students; joint venture (GmbH) between RWTH Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Jülich
Aachen, Helmholtz Association, federal state of NRW, BMBF
www.grs-sim.de
Jülich-Helmholtz graduate school for energy and climate: Helmholtz Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training in Energy and Climate Research (HITEC)
Aachen, Bochum, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Wuppertal, Helmholtz Association
www.fz-juelich.de/hitec
* Forschungszentrum Jülich is actively involved in training PhD students in graduate schools and research training groups. For the second time in 2012, AICES and the Bonn-Cologne Graduate School secured funding from the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. The German Research Foundation (DFG) will support their innovative objectives and scientific concepts for another five years.
54 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Knowledge Worldwide – Highlights of 2012
GeorgiaDuring a visit on the occasion of celebrations to mark the 90 th anniversary of the Georgian Technical University (GTU), Prof. Sebastian M. Schmidt, member of Jülich’s Board of Directors, presented Georgian students at GTU and Tbilisi State University with certificates for three PhD and two master’s scholarships. A joint call to apply for cooperation support was published for the first time in 2012 by Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Georgian national organization for the promotion of science and research (Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, SRNSF).
BrazilForschungszentrum Jülich is setting up the LABEX Germany in Brazil laboratory at EMBRAPA, Brazil’s largest agricultural research company. The cooperation agreement was signed on 8 October 2012 in the presence of Annette Schavan, then Federal Minister of Education and Research. The partners are developing joint research projects in the areas of agriculture, plant phenotyping, and bioinfor-matics. In this way, Jülich is intensifying its cooperation with one of the most important countries for the bioeconomy.
USAA new memorandum of understanding on supercomputing collaboration was signed with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Illinois (USA). Prof. Sebastian M. Schmidt, member of Jülich’s Board of Directors, and Prof. Thomas Lippert from the Jülich Supercomputing Centre came to an understanding with their American partners to look for pathways to exascale computing. The two institutions agreed on an exchange programme as well as a joint young scientists programme. Physicists at ANL and Jülich’s Nuclear Physics Institute and Institute for Advanced Simulation are perform-ing joint research at the interface of nuclear physics and particle physics. For this work, Dr. Craig D. Roberts from Argonne received the Helmholtz International Fellow Award.
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Visiting scientists
Western Europe350 of which from Germany
Other 2America 27Asia 137
Eastern Europe 56
638638
2012
Total 860 Number of countries 40
China2012 saw the beginning of a supercomputing coopera-tion with China’s National Supercomputing Centre in Tianjin and the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Science (CNIC) in Beijing. The first trilateral workshop entitled ‘Changes’ with CNIC and the University of Illinois took place at Jülich in September, and brought together supercomputing experts from Europe, China, and the USA. In addition, a working group of the joint research laboratory of the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT) and the subinstitute of Bioelectronics at Jülich was selected as eligible for funding in the first selection round for Helmholtz-CAS Joint Research Groups, which lays the foundation for long-term cooperation between the two institutions.
IndiaIn May 2012, Forschungszentrum Jülich opened an office in Mumbai that aims to promote the expansion of scientific cooperation with research establishments and universities in India. Dr. Ganesh Shankar represents Forschungszentrum Jülich and is the point of contact for scientific institu-tions, ministries, and companies in the country. The office is responsible for building and strengthening contacts with politics, science, and admin-istration, evaluating applications from Indian scientists, and assisting in the organization of delegation visits.
Forschungszentrum Jülich is also among the founding members of the German Center for Research and Innovation, which was opened in New Delhi in October 2012.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
International Cooperations in Energy Research
H2IGCC – Turbine technology for the use of hydrogen-rich fuel gases | Gas turbines will be made more efficient in using hydrogen-rich fuel gases formed in so-called integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants or hydrogen that will be produced from renewable energies in the future. Twenty-four partners from eleven European countries are working on the EU research project H2IGCC. They are optimizing turbine technology for safe and low-emission operation. In the subproject ‘Materials’, Jülich scientists are contributing to the development of thermal barrier coatings, which are characterized by their long lifetime and high robustness. The total budget of the project running from 2009 to 2013 is € 17.8 million.
EFFIPRO – EU project for efficient and robust fuel cells | Novel fuel cells with ceramic proton-conducting electrolytes (PC-SOFCs) are to be made available by 2020. To this end, seven project part-ners from five countries are developing stable and robust electrolytes and elec-trodes in the EU project EFFIPRO. The researchers hope that this will make PC-SOFCs one of the most important fuel cell technologies. Their goal is to accelerate practical application of such fuel cells, increase their efficiency by
scientists. The infrastructure project launched in late 2011, which is headed by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), is being funded with € 8 million by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme for Re-search over a period of four years. About half a million has been earmarked for the Institute of Energy and Climate Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Collaborative project N-KATH – Tailor- made cathode materials | Longer life-times and a higher performance at low temperatures will help to achieve a breakthrough in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology. To this end, Jülich researchers and Russian colleagues are working on optimized new materials in the N-KATH collaborative project. The SOFC cathode materials are tailor-made by the Russian partners and then stud-ied and tested by Jülich researchers. The company H.C. Starck Ceramics is another partner in the collaboration and provides the cells for testing. The Feder-al Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the three-year project with € 440,000.
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10 %, reduce CO2 emissions and, in the long term, drive forward the hydrogen economy. The project was funded by the EU with € 2.5 million from 2009 to 2012.
VITI – Tracks for electric current | Topological insulators only behave as an insulator in their interior, while their surfaces and edges conduct electricity, similar to tracks. They could make computers and mobile phones super- fast some day without heating them up. At the Virtual Institute for Topological Insulators (VITI), which was established in 2012, scientists from Germany and China are investigating novel materials with great potential for applications in information technologies. The Helm-holtz Association is funding the project coordinated by Forschungszentrum Jülich with € 600,000 per annum for three to five years. The partners are contributing € 300,000 per annum.
H2FC – A network for hydrogen technology | Nineteen partners from all over Europe have joined forces in the H2FC project to form a network of research infrastructures in the area of hydrogen technology and fuel cells. This includes jointly used databases and experimental facilities, as well as coor-dinated training and support for young
The optimization of gas turbines for use with hydrogen-rich fuel gases is the objective of the H2IGCC project.
57 57 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Facts & FiguresWhoever shares their knowledge wins in so many ways. Forschungszentrum Jülich works with numerous partners from science and industry on both a national and international level and it does so to the benefit of all involved. In many projects, Jülich scientists are responsible for the coordination.
Nationally funded projects coordinated by Forschungszentrum Jülich (examples)
Title Funded byContract volume Jülich
German Plant Phenotyping Network (DPPN) BMBF € 18,342,495
Nanostructured Ceramic and Metal-Supported Membranes for Gas Separation in Fossil-Fueled Power Plants (METPORE II)
BMWi € 2,029,906
Extensive light trapping in silicon-based thin-film solar cell technology (LIST); subproject: Optical functional layers and transparent contacts
BMU € 1,956,628
New cost-effective and sustainable materials for PEM electrolysis for the production of hydrogen from renewable energies (EKOLYSER)
BMWi € 1,810,376
Helmholtz Energy Alliance Stationary Electrochemical Storage and Conversion HGF € 1,275,000
Basic research on the immobilization of long-lived radionuclides by means of integration into ceramics suitable for final repository storage (conditioning)
BMBF € 919,706
Membrane electrode assemblies for alkaline PEM electrolysis for the production of hydrogen from renewable energies (MaPEl)
BMBF € 538,748
German–Japanese collaboration in computational neuroscience: Impact of top-down influence on visual processing during free viewing: multi-scale analysis of multi-area massively parallel recording of the visual pathway
BMBF € 533,061
Ab initio development of new cathode materials(N-KATH)
BMBF € 440,258
Flexible simulation package for multiphase flows in fuel cells (FlexSim)
MIWF € 389,127
National Cooperations
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Collaborative projects with national funding in excess of € 2 million
Title Funded byContract volume Jülich
Construction of a petaflop computer, federal state funding MIWF € 44,200,000
Construction of a petaflop computer, funding through the Gauss Centre BMBF € 42,423,000
Extension of a petaflop computer, federal state funding MIWF € 16,000,000
High-Energy Storage Ring (HESR) of the future international Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), commission
BMBF € 38,220,000
German Plant Phenotyping Network (DPPN) BMBF € 18,342,495
Development and testing of prototype components for ITER at Forschungszentrum Jülich BMBF € 11,659,446
Platform for translational neurological research based on the combination of ultrahigh-field magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography (development of a 9.4 tesla PET hybrid system)
BMBF € 9,625,000
Participation of Helmholtz Association centres in the re-design phase of ESS BMBF € 8,989,980
Characterization of the local microstructure and spatially resolved composition of structural and functional materials for novel energy conversion and storage systems
BMBF € 6,506,553
German Research School for Simulation Sciences (GRS) HGF € 6,200,000
High-temperature electrochemical metal-metal oxide batteries for centralized and decentralized stationary storage (MeMo)
BMBF € 4,517,690
HGF Systems Biology Initiative; health networkThe Human Brain Model: Connecting Neuronal Structure and Function across Temporal and Spatial Scales (network 7; NW7, Human Brain)
HGF € 4,348,800
Fuel processing technology with biomass-to-liquid fuels and reformer fuel cell systems (previously EFFESYS)
BMWi € 4,104,000
Virtual Institute for Topological Insulators HGF € 2,900,000
Materials and Components to Meet High Energy Density Batteries (MEET HiEnD) BMBF € 2,516,692
Helmholtz Interdisciplinary Training in Energy and Climate Research (HITEC) HGF € 2,400,000
CROP.SENSe – Competence Networks in Agri-Food Research: Complex Sensors for Crop Research, Breeding and Inventory Control(PhenoCrops) (Ziel-2 EFRE)
BMWi € 2,252,739
Nanostructured Ceramic and Metal-Supported Membranes for Gas Separation in Fossil-Fueled Power Plants (METPORE II)
BMWi € 2,029,906
In 2012, Forschungszentrum Jülich was involved in 263 nationally funded projects, including 125 with several partners. Twenty-four of these alliances were coordinated by Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Collaborative research centres involving Jülich
2003 11
2004 14
2005 12
2006 14
2007 10
2008 18
2009 15
2010 12
2011 13
2012 10
Launch of the German Plant Phenotyping Network (DPPN), in the picture (from left to right): Prof. Achim Bachem, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich, Dr. Martin Frauen, WPI, Prof. Jörg Durner, HMGU, Thomas Rachel MdB, Parlia-mentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Research (BMBF), Prof. Thomas Altmann, IPK Gatersleben, Prof. Ulrich Schurr, director at the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences – Plant Sciences (IBG-2) of Forschungszentrum Jülich
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International EU Cooperations
EU projects coordinated by Jülich*Twenty-six EU projects were coordinated by Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2012.
Acronym Project titleContract volume Jülich
CARBOWASTE Treatment and Disposal of Irradiated Graphite and other Carbonaceous Waste € 1,003,757
IAGOS-ERI In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System – European Research Infrastructure € 614,435
RECONCILEReconciliation of Essential Process Parameters for an Enhanced Predictability of Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Loss and its Climate Interactions
€ 1,635,728
NASAOTM Nanostructured Surface Activated Ultra-thin Oxygen Transport Membrane € 993,758
ERASYSBIO+ ERA-NET for Systems Biology € 98,000
POLPBAR Production of Polarized Antiprotons € 1,689,900
GARNICS Gardening with a Cognitive System € 995,186 €
PRACE-1IPFirst Implementation Phase of the European High-Performance Computing Service PRACE
€ 1,977,400
ESMI European Soft Matter Infrastructure € 2,774,539
SIINN Safe Implementation of Innovative Nanoscience and Nanotechnology € 374,218
MARTEC II Maritime Technologies € 558,912
ECO-INNOVERAERA-NET on ECO-INNOVATION – Boosting Eco-innovation through Joint Cooperation in Research and Dissemination
€ 460,505
HOPSA-EU Holistic Performance System Analysis-EU € 315,550
PRACE-2IP PRACE – Second Implementation Phase Project € 1,037,155
DEEP Dynamical Exascale Entry Platform € 1,108,537
MMLCR-SOFC Working towards Mass-Manufactured, Low-Cost and Robust SOFC Stacks € 583,848 €
FASTTRACKFast Track – Accelerated Development and Prototyping of Nano-technology-based High-efficiency Thin-film Silicon Solar Modules
€ 2,178,251
EPPN European Plant Phenotyping Network € 1,615,853
MAOROBOTS Methylaluminoxane (MAO) Activators in the Molecular Polyolefin Factory € 1,002,000
SOFC LIFE Solid Oxide Fuel Cells – Integrating Degradation Effects into Lifetime Prediction Models € 575,000
SIINN Safe Implementation of Innovative Nanoscience and Nanotechnology € 370,000
CASYMCoordinating Action Systems Medicine – Implementation of Systems Medicine across Europe
€ 722,700
PRACE-3IP PRACE – Third Implementation Phase € 1,190,367
SOMATAI Soft Matter AT Aqueous Interfaces € 597,200
SILICON LIGHT Improved Material Quality and Light Trapping in Thin-film Silicon Solar Cells € 185,858
ERASYNBIO Development and Coordination of Synthetic Biology in the European Research Area € 446,000
* In contrast to last year’s annual report, which detailed only those EU projects that were new in the period under review, Forschungszentrum Jülich’s overall involvement in the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research is outlined here.
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Involvement of Forschungszentrum Jülich in EU programmes within the Seventh Framework Programme for Research*
EU programmeNumber of approved projects
EU funding (thousands of euros)
Health 4 520
Food, Agriculture and Biotech-nology
12 1,817
Information and Communica-tion Technologies
13 5,070
Nano, Materials and Production 19 9,947
Energy 13 4,920
Environment 7 4,127
Space 4 1,420
Euratom (including Intra-Euro-pean Training Fellowships (EIF)
11 3,294
Research Infrastructures 32 25,193
ERC 2 2,092
Marie Curie (Host Driven-Action)
8 3,600
Miscellaneous in FRP 7 (Eranet INTAS, etc.)
30 8,447
FRP 7 total 155 70,447
EU-funded projects involving Jülich in 2012 – funding in excess of € 1 million
TitleContract volume Jülich
MAO-ROBOTS Methylaluminoxane (MAO) Activators in the Molecular Polyolefin Factory
€ 1,001,862
CARBOWASTE – Treatment and Disposal of Irradiated Graphite and other Carbonaceous Waste
€ 1,003,757
PATHOGENOMICS ERA-NET Coord, Action € 1,022,599
NMI3 neu € 1,078,820
SOFC600 – SOFC for Operation at 600 °C – IP
€ 1,086,313
DEEP € 1,108,495
PEGASOS € 1,329,993
EPPN – European Plant Phenotyping Network
€ 1,615,852
CILIA Integrated Project € 1,633,310
RECONCILE – Reconciliation of Essential Process Parameters for an Enhanced Predictability of Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Loss and its Climate Interactions
€ 1,635,728
POLPBAR € 1,689,900
Fast Track – Accelerated Development and Prototyping of Nano-technology- based High-efficiency Thin-film Silicon Solar Modules
€ 2,178,251
ESMI (während Proposalphase: EFAST) € 2,774,539
HPC for FUSION; Notification on Priority Support; A Dedicated European High-Performance Computer for Fusion Applications (JU-EUROPA-FF)CCE-FU 42/8,4b/endorsed by EFDA-SC 7-MAY-08 as a ‘specific cooperative project’ according to Article 5.1.1
€ 3,600,000
PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) -1IP
€ 1,997,400
PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) -2IP
€ 1,037,155
PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) -3IP
€ 1,190,367
* In contrast to last year’s annual report, which detailed only those EU projects that were new in the period under review, Forschungszentrum Jülich’s overall involvement in the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research is outlined here.
Measuring probe on Lufthansa A340-300 Viersen, D-AIGT, for the In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS) climate research programme coordinated by Forschungs-zentrum Jülich.
* This table outlines Forschungszentrum Jülich’s overall involvement in the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research.
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Number of industrial collaborations
Year NationalInter-national
Total
2004 201 83 284
2005 190 123 313
2006 222 103 325
2007 151 77 228
2008*
2009 264 60 324
2010 260 65 325
2011 274 60 334
2012 284 79 363
* 2008 not shown due to change of data system
Important industrial collaborations of Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2012
Project Industry partner
Cooperation agreement for MoBiChipABX Advanced BiochemicalCompounds
Efficient Ecological Aircraft SystemsEFFESYS
Airbus Deutschland GmbH;Pfalzwerke Aerospace AG; Nord-Micro AG & Co. OHG; EADS; Diehl Aerospace GmbH; AOA Apparatebau Gauting GmbH
Flexible Simulation of Fuel Cells (FLEXSIM)
AixprocessVerfahrens- und Strömungstechnik
Investigations for the fermentative production of L-leucine using microorganisms
Amino GmbH
GDL coatings for HT-PEFCs and binding and release of agricultural chemicals from biofilter materials
BASF SE
Improved Plant Phenotyping under Various Environmental Conditions
BAYER Bioscience N.V.
Solar cells on the basis of printable Si and/or Ge compounds
Evonik Degussa GmbH
Membrane electrode assemblies for alkaline PEM electrolysis for the production of hydrogen from renewable energies; MaPEl
FuMA-Tech GmbH
Biotechnological routes for functional polymer and oligomer products: fabrication of adhesive peptides
Henkel KGaA
Exascale Innovation Center (EIC) with IBMIBM DeutschlandResearch and Development GmbH
Exacluster Lab (ECL) with Intel and PARTEC (Jülich Open Innovation Lab for Cluster Supercomputing Design and Evaluation)
Intel GmbH
Cost savings and optimization of glass sealant tapes for sealing in SOFC technology, GLASSeal
Kerafol GmbH
NVIDIA Application Lab for the acceleration of scientific applications with graphics processing units
NVIDIA GmbH
JuRoPA-3: Development of an HPC Sys-tem with T-Platforms Cluster-Architecture and ParaStation Cluster MiddlewarePartners: Partec (D), T-Platforms (RU)
ParTec Cluster Competence Center GmbH
Cultivation, Measurement, Modeling and Simulation of 13-C-labeling Experiments Using Penicillium chrysogenum
Sandoz GmbH
Characterization of metal-metal oxide high- temperature storage options and MRI-PET
Siemens AG
Centre of excellence for innovative PV system technology NRW Ziel 2
TÜV Immissionsschutz und Energiesysteme GmbH
Cooperations with Industry
62 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Operation Brain: The Human Brain ProjectEurope is pooling its scientific expertise for the objective of simulating the hu-man brain on a supercomputer of the future in order to understand it on all levels – from the molecules to the inter-play of entire regions of the brain. On 28 January 2013, the EU chose the Human Brain Project as one of its ‘flag-ships’ in its programme Future and Emerging Technologies, and will fund the project with up to € 1 billion over the next ten years. The project brings together researchers from more than 80 scientific institutions in 23 countries. Forschungszentrum Jülich and its re-search partners in the region – the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA), the universities of Düsseldorf and Wuppertal, and the German Research School for Simulation Sciences – play a key role in the project.
On the one hand, the Jülich scientists contribute their expertise in high-perfor-mance computing. For example, experts at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) together with cooperation partners are developing new supercomputers that will able to perform more than a quintillion arithmetic operations per second (exaflop/s), as well as suitable software. Such computers are needed to process the huge amounts of data on
the brain that are available worldwide. A dedicated Human Brain supercomputer will be installed by 2020.
Brain atlas as a navigation systemOn the other hand, Jülich scientists at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medi-cine (INM) will obtain new information on the structure and function of individ-ual neurons, entire neuron clusters, and larger networks. “We are creating a vir-tual human brain that covers the spatial organization of the brain from the mo-lecular level right up to the complex sys-tem of functions. This multimodal brain atlas will be the navigation system of the Human Brain Project,” says Prof. Katrin Amunts, director at INM. Prof. Markus Diesmann, also a director at INM, works at the interface between medical research and simulation tech-nology: “We investigate processes in the brain, for example by developing simplified models of neurons, and simu-lating their activity and communication with each other. By comparing our re-sults with experimental data, we can then progressively refine our models until they closely resemble the real network of the brain.” Another director at INM, Prof. Peter Tass, is developing computer models to develop treatments
for diseases of the brain such as Parkinson’s. “Our
Coordinated Reset technology
is a result of this research. It provides a way of purposely disturbing a pathologi-cal synchronization of neuron clusters.”
When the scientists have developed a better understanding of the workings of the human brain with the help of the virtual brain model, they will be able to apply this to design even more powerful and extremely energy-efficient comput-ers: after all, the brain requires less en-ergy for its highly complex information processing than a 60-watt incandescent bulb.
Jülich researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre who are involved in the Human Brain Project (from top to bottom): Prof. Markus Dies-mann, Prof. Katrin Amunts, Prof. Peter Tass and Prof. Thomas Lippert.
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 63
Above the Clouds – No Limits in Climate ResearchThe novel spectrometer GLORIA collected some 30 terabytes of data for climate research on board the new Ger-man research aircraft HALO in 2012. GLORIA stands for ‘Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere’. This is the name of a novel infrared camera that precisely maps the large-scale movements of gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. A recently developed detector chip measures carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, water vapour, numerous nitrogen and chlorine compounds, and other substances.
It all began in 2003 during an informal exchange of ideas between physicist Felix Friedl-Vallon from Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (today Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT) and atmospheric researcher Prof. Martin Riese, director at Jülich’s Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK). Riese was planning to measure a large range of climate-relevant trace gases in unprecedented spatial resolution with novel detector chips. Friedl-Vallon sug-gested using a suitable spectrometer for this purpose – the idea for GLORIA was born.
GLORIA goes on boardNine years later, in August 2012, GLORIA was on board when the research aircraft HALO (High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft) was officially put into operation by Prof. Annette Schavan, then Federal Minister of Education and
Research. HALO is a joint initiative of German institutions involved in environ-mental and climate research funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Helmholtz Association, the German Research Foundation, the Max Planck Society, the Free State of Bavaria, the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), Forschungs-zentrum Jülich, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and the German Aero-space Center (DLR).
The flight routes of the 2012 climate measurement campaigns stretched from the Arctic Circle to the Svalbard archi-pelago and around Africa to the Antarc-
tic – a total of 126 flight hours and 88,000 kilometres. The total of 30 tera-bytes of data, which corresponds roughly to the amount of data contained in three million encyclopaedias, is now being analysed. Dr. Peter Preusse reveals initial findings: “The results of GLORIA show a large number of very thin filaments created by the mixing of tropospheric and stratospheric air. GLORIA’s resolution is particularly high, enabling researchers to observe these filaments with a vertical expansion of only a few hundred metres. These struc-tures are thinner and more pronounced than previously predicted by models.”
In autumn 2012, the novel spectrometer GLORIA (left) took part in two large-scale measurement campaigns: TACTS (green) and ESMVal (red). Both TACTS (Transport and Composition in the Upper Troposphere/Lowermost Stratosphere) and ESMVal (Earth System Model Validation) study the transport processes between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The results help to improve existing climate models.
64 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)JARA pools the expertise of Forschungs-zentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen Uni-versity in a cooperation model that is unique in Germany. The objective of the alliance, which currently encompasses 3,800 employees, is to pursue joint cutting-edge research on solving the grand challenges facing society. The cooperation originated in 2007 from preparations for the first Excellence Initiative and was also successful in the second round with its renewal application
The number of jointly appointed professors (salary grade W)
increased from 11 in 2006 to 44 in 2012 (as of 31.12.2012).
The institutes involved in JARA had an output of a total of
1,662 peer-reviewed publications in 2012.
The number of joint publications in 2012 was 420 at the
time of data collection (May 2013).
JARA finances 2012
Budget € 500 million Amount invested € 60 million Money from the Excellence Initiative
approx. € 13.6 million
entitled ‘RWTH Aachen 2020: Meeting Global Challenges. The Integrated Inter-disciplinary University of Technology’. JARA will now be funded through the Excellence Initiative for another five years. Another section was also added to JARA on 1 August 2012. JARA-FAME (Forces and Matter Experiments) per-forms basic research in the fields of nuclear physics and particle physics.At present, JARA has the following five sections:
• JARA-BRAIN (Translational Brain Medicine)
• JARA-FIT (Fundamentals of Future Information Technology)
• JARA-HPC (High-Performance Computing)
• JARA-ENERGY (Sustainable Energy Research)
• JARA-FAME (Forces and Matter Experiments)
JARA-BRAIN and JARA-HPC | perform joint research for the simulation of the human brain in the Human Brain Project. Scientists from 23 countries are working together to build a unique infrastructure that will allow them to establish and further develop a brain research and information technology network. The European Union is sup-porting this project as part of its FET Flagship Initiative (see p. 62). Another joint success is the establishment of the SimLab Neuroscience at JSC (see Chronology, p. 15).
Selected projects 2012:
JARA-FIT | The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Prof. Rafal Dunin-Borkowski, director at the Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spec-troscopy with Electrons, an ERC Ad-vanced Grant. Dunin-Borkowski will receive funding of € 2.5 million over a five-year period to develop electron microscopy methods that will allow magnetic fields inside materials to be mapped with almost atomic resolution. Together with the respected journal Nature Materials, the JARA-FIT section hosted the Nature Conference ‘Frontiers
in Electronic Materials: Correlation Effects and Memristive Phenomena’ in Aachen from 17 to 20 June.JARA-ENERGY | In the project on the synthesis and characterization of ceramic samarium phosphate and samarium phosphosilicate phases for the immobilization of actinoids, funded by DFG, JARA scientists are investigat-ing long-term solutions for the safe disposal of radioisotopes from the production of nuclear energy.
Whether they’re stockbrokers or chief executive officers – managers make quick decisions all day long. Priv.-Doz. Dr. Dr. Svenja Caspers and her team from Forschungszentrum Jülich/JARA-BRAIN investigated what happens in the brain during this process together with business psychologists and sociologists from the University of Cologne. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, they found that the caudate nucleus (green in the image) was more active in executives than in the rest of the population when it comes to making simple routine decisions. It is believed that this area of the brain con-tributes to recognizing patterns based on previous knowledge, thus paving the way for intuitive decisions.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
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65
Each elementary particle in nature has a ‘mirror image’. This anti-particle has the same mass, but an opposite electric charge. What
we call matter consists of particles, and antimatter consists of the associated antiparticles. According to our present knowledge, the universe was created in the Big Bang, which produced as much matter as antimatter. However, we owe our existence to the imbalance between matter and antimatter. Without this asymmetry, matter and antimatter would have completely annihilated each other after the Big Bang and there would be no galaxies, planets, or humans.
This prompts two questions: Are there regions in our universe that consist entirely of antimatter? And if there aren’t any, how did the matter- antimatter asymmetry come to exist? Researchers from Aachen and Jülich are working together to answer these questions and therefore established
JARA-FAME on 1 August 2012 (p. 46).The first question will hopefully be
answered by the Alpha Magnetic Spec-trometer (AMS) on the International Space Station, where the device is in-vestigating cosmic rays with previously unachievable precision. If it could detect only one single anticarbon nucleus, this would be positive proof that stars con-sisting of antimatter do exist. The first results presented by the AMS collabora-tion, which is headed by Physics Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting, are already quite spectacular and could only be published so early with the support of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre: cosmic radiation contains far more positrons that expect-ed. Whether this is evidence of another mysterious substance referred to as dark matter is an issue the researchers in the FAME section are planning to explore in the future.
The Jülich Electric Dipole Moment Investigation (JEDI) project addresses
the second question. Today, although we are aware of phenomena that go some way towards explaining the matter-antimatter asymmetry, these are by far not sufficient to explain its ex-tent. “Another reason would be the existence of a permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) in protons,” explains Prof. Maier, one of the directors of JARA-FAME. An EDM is usually under-stood to mean that positive and nega-tive charges are spatially separated. Demonstrating this in a proton is a huge challenge. If a proton was as big as the Earth, it would mean finding a separa-tion in the order of magnitude of the diameter of a human hair. The FAME researchers are hoping to determine the EDM with unprecedented precision in storage rings, and thus contribute to solving the fundamental question be-hind our existence.
It is one of the great mysteries of science: What happened to the antimatter that was creat-ed together with matter at the dawn of the universe? Researchers in the new JARA section FAME (Forces and Matter Experiments) are hoping to unravel this mystery.
JARA-FAME: Discovering Elementary Building Blocks and Forces
66
Jülich research provides answers to fundamental questions. It also drives innovations that are worth their weight in gold and benefit both industry and society. A steady flow of new patent applications and numerous licensing agreements testify to this.
Jülich Know-How in Industry and Society
Number of licences 2012
Total number 100 of which new 6 of which discontinuing 18 Total share foreign 31 Share USA (most important partner country) 12 Share SMEs 69
Licences
Income from licences 2012
€ 1.12 million
Total number of protective rights in 2012 (Patents, patent applications and utility models in Germany and abroad)
2002 7,413
2003 8,705
2004 13,301
2005 17,054
2006 17,710
2007 15,625
2008 16,276
2009 15,377
2010 14,793
2011 16,159
2012 16,892
Patents
Patents 2012*
Patent applications Germany 47 of which priority applications 45
Patent applications abroad 36 of which priority applications 3
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
* By filing a patent application, the applicant obtains a right of priority, which allows them to file additional applications (e.g. abroad) within a year of filing the original application, claiming the right of priority. Patent applications based on the right of priority include the original applications in the period under review.
Total patents granted 82 of which technologies for which
a patent was granted for the first time 25 Patents granted Germany 12 Patents granted abroad 70
Total number of protective rights 2012 16,892
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Research for Practical Applications
Despite intensive worldwide research efforts, a drug that is able to alleviate or even cure Alzheimer’s has not yet been found. According to estimates, the num-ber of people currently affected by this form of dementia in Germany alone is around one million. Although promising substances were discovered in the past, they were either found to be ineffective in clinical trials or their side effects were too strong.
Prof. Dieter Willbold, director at Jülich’s Institute for Complex Systems (ICS) is confident that his team has found a candidate that will fare better as an active substance. This potential drug will be tested in phase-1 clinical trials during the next two years. In this phase, doctors administer the sub-stance to healthy individuals to find out how well they are tolerate it and how it is transformed by metabolism. The Helmholtz Association is funding the phase-1 trials from its Validation Fund.
Willbold believes to have good reason for his optimism: “The mode of action of our D3 peptide derivatives is completely different than that of other
Paving the way for drugs for Alzheimer’s
substances that have been clinically tested so far.” Most of them target the chain-like beta amyloid molecule comprising around 40 amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The beta amyloid molecule can form deposits known as plaques that are characteris-tic of Alzheimer’s disease and were found in the brains of deceased persons who had been affected by the disease. Some of the candidate drugs that failed
the test were supposed to block the enzymes required for the production of the beta amyloid molecule, for example.
“Our approach, in contrast, is not to take action against the beta amyloid molecule, but to stabilize it instead. This is how we want to prevent it from being converted into larger aggregates or plaques,” says Willbold. In their search for substances that act in this manner, they discovered the D3 peptide and a number of its derivatives. These sub-stances contain amino acids that are structured like a mirror image of the amino acids in natural proteins. The advantage of the artificial mirror imag-es: they are not attacked by degradation proteins in the body and are therefore particularly stable.
The approach of the Jülich scientists has already proven to be effective in tests on cell cultures and on mice that have mutated genes for a human beta amyloid precursor protein. In these Alzheimer’s model mice, D3 has a posi-tive effect on mental faculties. For ex-ample, the animals are better able to re-member how to get to the platform in a water pool where they can take a rest.
Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
A team headed by Prof. Dieter Willbold and Dr. Susanne Aileen Funke have developed a potential drug for Alzheimer’s dementia, which will now be tested in initial clinical trials.
Computer simulations show two different perspectives of how the D3 peptide binds to the ß-amyloid molecules – shown here as yellow-green strips.
68 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 201268
Analysis method for electronic waste
On average, 1,000 kilograms of ore from a goldmine contains no more than 5 grams of gold, while 1,000 kilograms of mobile phones in contrast contains up to 350 grams. Electronic waste also contains other elements, such as silver, palladium, iridium, and copper. In princi-ple, it should pay off to mine for noble metal there. However, in practice, recycling is a complex task. The old devices must be collected as effectively as possible, sorted and then taken apart. They also contain several harmful substances that must completely removed.
“For the recycling industry, it’s important to know what valuable materials are contained in a batch of waste as well as in what quantities,” says Dr. Andrea Mahr from Technology Transfer (T) at Forschungszentrum Jülich. She sounded out the market for a method originally developed by scientists at Jülich and Aachen which analyses the contents of drums with
low-level radioactive waste without having to open them. These drums will be taken to Schacht Konrad near the town of Salzgitter for final disposal from 2019.
A team headed by Dr. Eric Mauerhofer at Jülich’s Institute of Energy and Climate Research started to investigate the so-called prompt-gamma neutron activation analysis as a cost-effective and non-destructive method of analysing the contents of these drums in 2007. This method involves a neutron beam that briefly activates the atomic nuclei in the material to be analysed. The activated nuclei react promptly – within a maximum of a trillionth of a second – by emitting gamma radiation. The scientists developed an analysis technique that delivers numerical values for the composition of elements from the gamma spectrum obtained. They filed a patent application and named the entire method MEDINA, short for ‘Multi- Element Detection
based on Instrumental Neutron Activa-tion’.
The researchers are now planning to use the method to analyse electronic waste. They are convinced that it is much more efficient than conventional methods: “The latter require a lot of staff and time, not to mention the chemicals and energy that are needed for wet-chemical sample preparation,” says Mauerhofer. Above all, however, MEDINA solves the problem posed by the complex sampling process. The necessary radiation protection measures are comparable to those in doctors’ surgeries and medical laboratories when taking X-rays or handling radioactive substances.
In order to adapt MEDINA to the re-quirements of the recycling sector, the scientists need industry support. “The interest is there, and we’re already in concrete negotiations with one company on joint further development,” says technology transfer expert Mahr.
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Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich 69
Emergency management agencies as well as fire brigades and police forces must be able to communicate via non-public mobile communications when the power grid is disrupted. With funding from the Helmholtz Validation Fund, Jülich scientists are refining direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) systems to supply mobile base stations with power in emergencies – and do so in a reliable and environmentally friendly manner. They are contributing extensive know-how to this task: for example, they have fitted up DMFCs for use in a type of electrical forklift also referred to as an order picker. “A corresponding fuel cell stack has already been running for more than 20,000 operating hours,” says Dr. Martin Müller, head of DMFCs at Electro chemical Process Engineering in the Institute of Energy and Climate Research.
DMFCs convert the chemical energy contained in methanol as a liquid fuel
directly into electric current. On the one hand, this makes them an alternative to batteries. One kilogram of methane contains a hundred times more energy than a lead battery with the same weight, so that DMFC systems can be used to cover even lengthy periods without power. It is also easier to fill them and they do not require any time-consuming recharging cycles. On the other hand, DMFC systems also have advantages over diesel aggregates, which are frequently used for emergency power supply today. “In principle, DMFC systems are more reliable and they are suitable for remote maintenance,” says Müller. They are also quiet and emit less local air pollutants.
The Helmholtz Association validation fund enables scientists to advance their research results to a point where their value is increased and it becomes possi-ble to launch the product on the market. In the next two years, Jülich’s fuel cell
Emergency power supply with fuel cells
experts will ensure above all that the DMFC systems start reliably even after a long downtime and achieve a lifetime of at least ten years. They will also continue to reduce the cost of DMFCs.
The scientists have initially set their minds on the market that has emerged from the changeover of public safety radio to digital technology and the oper-ation of the necessary base stations. But they are also looking further into the future: “Mobile base stations will be increasingly supplied with power from wind or solar energy. During periods without wind and sunshine, DMFC systems could take up the slack,” says Müller.
Power outages jeopard-ize mobile communica-tions – and therefore a lifeline of modern society. DMFC systems (bottom) could in future become responsible for emergency power supply for base stations.
71 71
Appendix72 Finances
76 Bodies and Committees
78 Organization Chart
80 Contact Information
81 Publication Details
71
72 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
FinancesInvestments in science and research secure our future. Financing from public funds makes it possible to conduct the independent preliminary research that is essential to ensure sustainable development. In addition to this, Forschungszentrum Jülich also generates income from licences with its industrially oriented research.
Profit and loss accountThe profit and loss account compares the income and costs of Forschungszentrum Jülich. The difference normally corresponds to the company profit or loss. In the case of Forschungszentrum Jülich, the partners are obliged to balance the books. Like institutional funding, this extra revenue is part of the additional subsidies. The profit and loss statement is
Balance sheetSubsidies from the Federal Republic of Germany and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia make up by far the largest part of Forschungszentrum Jülich’s income. In addition,
therefore always balanced. Forschungszentrum Jülich generates significant revenue through project management activities, a large number of research and development pro-jects, and the provision of research facilities. The remaining operating income mainly consists of income from the provi-sions put aside for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.
Balance sheet 2012 (millions of euros)Assets 2012 2011
A. Fixed assets 510.4 465.9
I. Intangible assets 3.4 2.8
II. Tangible assets 506.8 462.9
III. Financial assets 0.2 0.2
B. Current assets 852.8 806.3
I. Inventories 39.9 37.2
II. Accounts receivable and other assets 30.9 21.6
III. Government equity to balance the books 760.6 708.2
IV. Cash on hand and on deposit with Deutsche Bundesbank, cash at credit institutions, cheques 21.4 39.3
C. Accruals and deferrals 13.6 25.3
Total assets 1,376.8 1,297.5
Liabilities 2012 2011
A. Equity capital 0.5 0.5
B. Special items for subsidies 585.9 543.3
I. on fixed assets 509.9 465.4
II. on current assets 76.0 77.9
C. Provisions 725.5 698.2
I. Decommissioning and disposal of nuclear installations 432.2 452.5
II. Pensions and miscellaneous 61.6 57.1
III. Provisions for taxation 231.7 188.6
D. Accounts payable 63.8 54.9
E. Accruals and deferrals 1.1 0.6
Total liabilities 1,376.8 1,297.5
Jülich also receives third-party funding from industry, project funding from federal and state ministries, and research funds from the European Union.
73 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Profit and loss statement 2012 (thousands of euros)2012 2011
Income from subsidies 513,534 594,449
Other subsidies 427,829 512,657
from federal government 377,142 453,560
from state government 50,687 59,097
Third-party project funding 85,705 81,792
from federal government 44,949 47,525
from state government 8,640 6,735
from DFG 6,592 5,212
from others 11,356 11,508
from EU 14,168 10,812
Revenues and other income 116,179 147.3
Revenues from research, development and the use of research facilities 9,623 14,081
Revenues from licensing and know-how agreements 1,118 1,267
Revenues from project management organizations 57,843 32,050
Revenues from infrastructure services and the sale of materials 8,409 8,425
Revenues from the disposal of fixed assets 487 560
Increase or reduction in the inventory of work in progressand services (of which EU € 968,000; prev. year € 9,706,000)
2,314 19,578
Other own work capitalized 602 712
Other operating income 31,645 60,487
Other interest and similar income 4,138 10,181
Allocations to special items for subsidies -98,082 -61,498
Transferred subsidies -45,057 -48,142
Income from subsidies, revenues and otherincome available to cover expenses
486,574 632,150
Personnel costs 272,285 252,010
General expenses 49,190 50,048
Material costs 23,728 26,378
Costs for energy and water 20,099 19,065
Costs for external research and development 5,363 4,605
Other operating costs 155,104 311,896
Other interest and similar costs 9,995 18,196
Non-recurring expenses 0.0 0.0
Depreciation on fixed assets 0.0 0.0
Depreciation on fixed assets 54,463 51,163
Income from liquidation of special items for subsidies -54,463 -51,163
Total expenditure 486,574 632,150
Result of normal business activity/Annual result 0.0 0.0
74 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Revenues 2012 without changes in provisions (thousands of euros)Research fields Total
Area Structure of Matter
Earth and Environ-ment
Health Energy Key Tech-nologies
Research fields
Other revenues Total
EU funding 1,172 3,208 480 5,409 3,963 14,232 905 15,137
National project funding (excl. DFG)
2,162 2,617 2,104 16,104 21,674 44,661 20,284 64,945
incl. transferred subsidies 0 168 69 530 117 884 19,752 20,636
DFG funding 291 1,654 81 1,207 3,294 6,527 65 6,592
Subtotal project funding 65,420 86,674
Contracts, abroad 14 295 1 1,191 577 2,078 319 2,397
Contracts, Germany 1,077 1,443 586 4,618 1,764 9,488 15,782 25,270
Project management 57,843 57,843
Subtotal third-party funding
4,716 9,217 3,252 28,529 31,272 76,986 95,198 172,184
Subsidies from the federal and state governments
384,684
incl. dismantling projects 66,120
Total 556,868
National project funding excl. DFG (thousands of euros)Total 64,945
• from federal government 44,949
• from state government 8,640
• from other sources (in Germany) 11,356
incl.
• transferred subsidies 20,636
• national project funding excl. DFG adjusted for transferred subsidies 44,309
The lack of agreement between the figures in the profit and loss statement and the overview of revenues from third-party project funding from the EU, and the federal and state governments as national funding agencies is due to the following reasons:The total sum of EU funding (€ 15,137,000) under ‘Revenues’ includes work in progress amounting to € 968,000 for all fields. The deduction of this work results in the rounded item (€ 14,168,000) in the profit and loss statement under ‘Third-party project funding from EU’.The total national project funding from the federal and state governments and other sources (in Germany, not including DFG funding) amounts to € 64,945,000. In the profit and loss statement, the sum includes the individual items of the federal government, the state government, and others (see table ‘National project funding excl. DFG’).
75 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
In 2012, Forschungszentrum Jülich’s third-party funding totalled € 172,200,000, representing an increase of € 11,900,000 compared to 2011 (€ 160,300,000). Most of this income from third parties resulted from research and development activities for industry, the acquisition of funding from Germany and abroad, plus project management on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2012, Forschungszentrum
Jülich also received subsidies including changes in provisions amounting to € 427,800,000 to cover expenses (i.e. for current operation) and to finance fixed assets (i.e. investments) from the federal and state governments, referred to in the table and diagram as ‘Subsidies from the federal and state governments’. These subsidies include € 66,100,000 for dismantling projects. Without these funds for provisions, subsidies from the federal and state governments amount to € 384,700,000.
Third-party funding€ 172,200,000 | 30,9 % 69,1 % | € 384,700,00
Subsidies from federal and state governments of which dismantling projects € 66,100,000
Revenues 2012
76 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Forschungszentrum Jülich was established on 11 December 1956 by the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. On 5 December 1967, it was converted into a GmbH (limited company) with the Federal Republic of Germany and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia assuming the role of shareholders.The task of Forschungszentrum Jülich is• to pursue scientific and technical research and develop-
ment at the interface between mankind, environment and technology,
• to undertake or participate in other national and international tasks in the field of basic and application-oriented research, especially precautionary research,
• to cooperate with science and industry in these fields of research and to communicate know-how to society as part of technology transfer.
Company bodiesThe Partner’s Meeting is the principal decision-making body of Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH.
The Supervisory Board as a body supervises the lawfulness, expedience and economic efficiency of the management board. It makes decisions on important research-related and financial issues of the company.
The Board of Directors conducts Forschungszentrum Jülich’s business pursuant to the Articles of Association. It reports to the Supervisory Board.
CommitteesThe Scientific and Technical Council (WTR) and the Scientific Advisory Council (WB) are committees of Forschungszentrum Jülich. WTR advises the Partners’ Meeting, the Supervisory Board and the management board on all issues associated with the strategic orientation of Forschungszentrum Jülich and on all scientific and technical issues of general importance.
The Scientific Advisory Council (WB) advises Forschungs-zentrum Jülich on all scientific and technical issues of general importance. This includes, for example, Jülich’s strategy and planning of research and development activities, promoting the optimal use of research facilities, and issues related to cooperations with universities and other research institutions.
The Scientific Advisory Council comprises members who are not employees of Forschungszentrum Jülich. The chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council is a member of the Super-visory Board.
Partners’ MeetingThe Partner’s Meeting is chaired by the German federal government, represented by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Supervisory BoardMinisterialdirektor Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher (Chairman)Federal Ministry of Education and Research
State Secretary Helmut Dockter (Vice-Chairman)Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Bodies and Committees
Dr.-Ing. Manfred BayerleinTÜV Rheinland AG
Prof. Dr. Ulrike BeisiegelUniversity of Göttingen
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang BerensUniversity of Münster
Ministerialdirigent Berthold GoekeFederal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
State Secretary Peter Knitsch Ministry of Climate Protection, Environment, Agriculture, Nature and Consumer Protection of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Dr. Arnd Jürgen KuhnForschungszentrum Jülich, Institute of Bio- and Geosciences
MinDirig Prof. Dr. Diethard MagerFederal Ministry of Economics and Technology
Prof. Dr. Uwe PietrzykForschungszentrum Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine
Dr. Heike RielIBM Research – Zürich
MinDirig Dr. Beatrix Vierkorn-RudolphFederal Ministry of Education and Research
www.fz-juelich.de/portal/EN/AboutUs/CompanyBodies/SupervisoryBoard/_node.html
77 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Management Board (Board of Directors)
Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem (Chairman)
Karsten Beneke (Vice-Chairman)
Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt(Member of the Board of Directors)
Prof. Dr. Harald Bolt(Member of the Board of Directors)
www.fz-juelich.de/portal/EN/AboutUs/CompanyBodies/BoardOfDirectors/_node.html
Scientific and Technical Council*
Prof. Dr. A. Wahner (Chairman)Institute of Energy and Climate Research
Prof. Dr. H. Ströher (Vice-Chairman)Nuclear Physics Institute
Dr. M. Schiek (Vice-Chairman)Central Institute of Engineering, Electronics and Analytics
www.fz-juelich.de/portal/EN/AboutUs/committees/ScientificAndTechnical Council/_node.html
Scientific Advisory Council*Prof. Dr. Heike RielIBM, Switzerland
Prof. Barbara ChapmanUniversity of Houston, USA
Dr. Frank-Detlef DrakeRWE AG, Germany
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang KnollAIT, Austria
Prof. Dr. Toni M. KutchanDonald Danforth Plant Science Center, USA
Prof. Dr. Karen MaexK.U. Leuven, Belgium
Prof. Dr. Eva Pebay-PeyroulaANR, France
Prof. Dr. Thomas RoserBrookhaven National Laboratory, USA
Prof. Dr. Elke ScheerUniversity of Konstanz, Germany
Prof. Dr. Horst SimonLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Prof. Dr. Metin TolanTU Dortmund University, Germany
Dr. Peter NaglerEvonik AG, Germany
* in accordance with Articles of Association
78
As of: 1 July 2013
Organization Chart
Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
Board of DirectorsScience; External Relations Prof. A. Bachem (Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Partners’ MeetingPartners: Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research Federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, represented by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research
Supervisory BoardChairman MinDir Dr. K. E. Huthmacher
Staff units
Board of DirectorsScientific Division I Prof. S. M. Schmidt (Member of the Board of Directors)
Information and Communications ManagementA. Bernhardt
JARA Office of the Secretary GeneralN. N.
Corporate DevelopmentDr. N. Drewes
Corporate CommunicationsDr. A. Rother
Institute of Complex SystemsProf. J. K. G. Dhont, Prof. C. Fahlke, Prof. J. Fitter (acting), Prof. G. Gompper, Prof. R. Merkel, Prof. A. Offenhäusser, Prof. D. Richter, Prof. D. Willbold
Office of the Board of Directors and International AffairsDr. T. Voß
Nuclear Physics InstituteProf. R. Maier, Prof. U.-G. Meißner, Prof. J. Ritman, Prof. H. Ströher
Institute for Advanced SimulationProf. S. Blügel, Prof. P. Carloni, Prof. M. Diesmann, Prof. D. DiVincenzo, Prof. G. Gompper, Prof. T. Lippert, Prof. U.-G. Meißner
Jülich Centre for Neutron ScienceProf. D. Richter, Prof. T. Brückel
Peter Grünberg InstituteProf. S. Blügel, Prof. T. Brückel, Prof. D. DiVincenzo, Prof. R. E. Dunin-Borkowski, Prof. D. A. Grützmacher, Prof. A. Offenhäusser, Prof. C. M. Schneider, Prof. S. Tautz, Prof. R. Waser
IT-ServicesF. Bläsen
Institute of Neuroscience and MedicineProf. K. Amunts, Prof. A. Bauer (acting), Prof. H. H. Coenen, Prof. M. Diesmann, Prof. G. R. Fink, Prof. N. J. Shah, Prof. D. Sturma, Prof. P. Tass
Sustainable CampusDr. P. Burauel
79 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Scientific Advisory CouncilChairman Dr. H. Riel
Scientific and Technical CouncilChairman Prof. A. Wahner
Board of DirectorsScientific Division II Prof. Dr.-Ing. H. Bolt (Member of the Board of Directors)
Board of DirectorsInfrastruktur K. Beneke (Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Institute of Bio- and GeosciencesProf. W. Amelung, Prof. M. Bott, Prof. K.-E. Jaeger, Prof. J. Pietruszka, Prof. U. Schurr, Prof. B. Usadel, Prof. H. Vereecken, Prof. W. Wiechert
Institute of Energy and Climate ResearchProf. H.-J. Allelein, Prof. D. Bosbach, Dr. H.-P. Buchkremer (acting), Prof. R.-A. Eichel, Prof. J.-F. Hake, Prof. A. Kiendler-Scharr, Prof. C. Linsmeier, Prof. U. Rau, Prof. M. Riese, Prof. U. Samm, Prof. L. Singheiser, Prof. D. Stolten, Prof. B. Thomauske, Prof. A. Wahner
PersonnelDr. M. Ertinger
Finance and ControllingR. Kellermann
Purchasing and MaterialsR.-D. Heitz
Law and PatentsC. Naumann
Organization and PlanningA. Emondts
Technology TransferDr. R. Raue
Technical InfrastructureDr. G. Damm
Nuclear ServicesDr. G. Damm/R. Printz
Safety and Radiation ProtectionB. Heuel-Fabianek
Buildings and Property ManagementM. Franken
Planning and Building ServicesJ. Kuchenbecker
Staff Unit
RevisionA. Kamps
Central LibraryDr. B. Mittermaier
Central Institute of Engineering, Electronics and AnalyticsDr. S. Küppers, Dr. G. Natour, Dr. S. van Waasen
Project Management Organizations
Project Management JülichDr. C. Stienen
Project Management Organization Energy, Technology, SustainabilityDr. B. Steingrobe
Contact Information
80 Forschungszentrum Jülich | Annual Report 2012
How to find us
By carIf you are coming from Aachen or Düsseldorf on the A 44 motorway, leave the motorway at the Jülich-West exit. At the first roundabout, turn left in the direction of Jülich. At the second roundabout, turn right (Westring) towards Düren. After approx. 5 km, turn left onto the L 253 and follow the signs for ‘Forschungszentrum’.
If you are coming from Cologne (Köln) on the A 4 motorway, leave the motorway at the Düren exit and turn right towards Jülich (B 56). After approx. 10 km, turn right and continue until you reach Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Using navigation systemsEnter your destination or street name as ‘Wilhelm-Johnen-Strasse’. From there, it is only a few hundred metres to the main entrance of Forschungszentrum Jülich – simply follow the signs. Forschungs-zentrum Jülich itself is not part of the network of public roads and is therefore not recognized by navigation systems.
Köln
BonnAachen
NL
B
Mönchen-gladbach
Jülich
Jülich Ost
Jülich West
Düren/Jülich
Düren
52
44
44 61
61
4
1
46
57
3
Düsseldorf
Would you like more information?If so, please do not hesitate to contact us …
Corporate Communications (UK)Head:Dr. Anne Rother
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH52425 JülichGermanyTel. +49 2461 61-4661Fax +49 2461 [email protected]
… come and visit us …
We organize guided tours of Forschungszentrum Jülich for interested groups.Please contact our Visitor Service for more information.Tel. +49 2461 [email protected]
… or request a copy of our free brochures …
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By public transportYou can take the train from Aachen or Cologne (Köln) to Düren train station. From here, you should take the local train (‘Rurtalbahn’) to the ‘Forschungszentrum’ stop. The main entrance is about a 15-minute walk from here.
81 Annual Report 2012 | Forschungszentrum Jülich
Publication Details Published by: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH | 52425 Jülich, Germany | Tel: +49 2461 61-4661 | Fax: +49 2461 61-4666 | Internet: www.fz-juelich.de Editorial team: Dr Wiebke Rögener, Annette Stettien, Dr Anne Rother (responsible under German Press Law) Authors: Dr. Frank Frick, Dr. Wiebke Rögener, Translation: Language Services, Forschungszentrum Jülich Graphics and layout: SeitenPlan Corporate Publishing GmbH Printers: Schloemer Gruppe GmbH Photos: 2happy/Shutterstock.com (63 top, sky), Africa Studio/Shutterstock.com (23 top), ©T. Altmann (14 top left), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) (54), Kitch Bain/Shutterstock.com (32), German Aerospace Center (DLR/ A. Minikin, DLR/CC-BY 3.0) (12 top left, 63 top), Martina Ebel/Shutterstock.com (8 left), Event-Images-Berlin, Andreas Speck (39), Forschungszentrum Jülich/Marc von Hobe (15 bottom right), Dr. K. Futterer, University of Birmingham (10 bottom left), gui jun peng/Shutter-stock.com (69 right), Anselm Horn, Universität Erlangen/ACS Chem Neurosci (2010) (67 top), iStockphoto/Thinkstock (14 top right, 29), J. Am. Chem. Soc. (11 top left), JARA-BRAIN (11 bottom right), Lufthansa Bildarchiv (60), NASA (65), nikkytok/Shutterstock.com (10 bottom right), Scania CV AB (15 top right), Carolin Schroeder (9 left), SeitenPlan (10 top left, 19 top), Siemens (56), Bernd Struckmeyer (cover, 4, 16–17, 24–25, 70–71, 75), Sunfire GmbH (23 bottom), Technische Universität München, research neutron source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (38), University of Hamburg (9 o.), Wavebreak Media/Thinkstock (13 top left), Welt der Physik (50), German Ethics Council/photo: Reiner Zensen (34 top left), all others: Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Excerpts from this Annual Report may be reproduced without special permission provided that Forschungszentrum Jülich is referred to in any publication. A reference copy is requested. All other rights reserved.
As of: July 2013
In August 2010, Forschungszentrum Jülich became certified as part of the ‘audit berufundfamilie’ initiative. Jülich has thus committed itself to continuous-ly defining and implementing measures for improving the reconciliation of work and family life.