Welcome to the MTET Program at KIT!
Our goal is to provide sustainable technologies for a society in which energy supply and material cycles are linked in a defossilized circular economy. This requires efficient solutions for the conversion, transport, storage and use of energy and energy sources.
News | News Archive

During a visit to Ulm, the Minister President of Baden-Württemberg also informed himself about the joint battery research of KIT and Ulm University.
KIT news in German
about research & key issues of PtX technologies, climate-neutral and energy-efficient cirular economy of plastics and negative emission technologies.

to learn more about research & key issues related to climate-neutral & energy-efficient circular economy of plastics & Power-to-X technologies.

Ulrich W. Paetzold receives funding of about two millionen euros for research on photovoltaics.
KIT news in English
Fabian Nitschke and Valentin Goldberg, guests on "Planet Wissen" in the SWR studio, classify the possibilities of lithium extraction in Germany.
ARD Mediathek in German
Prof. Martin Heilmaier was elected as one of the two presidents of the German Society for Materials Science (DGM). Congratulations!
Interview@DGM.de
Climate-friendly batteries for tomorrow's mobility - BatWoMan project aims to reduce production costs and energy consumption
KIT news in German
In the CaSino joint project, researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) work with partners on next-generation batteries
Learn more!Picture a Scientist - Portrait Svetlana Korneychuk
The Hydrogen Researcher
"The energy of tomorrow is water, which has been broken down by electric current. The elements of water broken down in this way, hydrogen and oxygen, will secure the Earth’s energy supply far into the future”. For Jules Verne, this was a vision he wrote down in his 1875 novel "The Mysterious Island." Dr. Svetlana Korneychuk, however, likes to quote the French author because his vision is closer to reality today than ever before. With her work at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the researcher contributes to making hydrogen as an energy carrier affordable and suitable for everyday use.
Zeitenwende Energy Security
3+1 initiatives to rapidly improve the security of supply of energy and energy materials. The fourth initiative is RESUR a Helmholtz platform for the design of robust energy systems and raw material supply.

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3D printing laboratory & Fischer Tropsch synthesis plant
9th Annual Meeting of the KIT Energy Center
The scientific contributions of KIT energy research to the accelerated implementation of the energy transition were the focus of the conference on July 14, 2022. After the welcoming address by KIT President Holger Hanselka, there were presentations from the Topics of the KIT Energy Center on the following subjects, among others:
- Change of times in energy supply: When and with which technology? (Prof. Dr. Eva Schill, INE)
- Finding the batteries of tomorrow today (T.T. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Helge S. Stein, HIU)
- Energy Use: From renewable electricity to chemical energy sources via integrated process chains (Prof. Dr. Ute Karl and Michael Riedinger, EIFER and IMVT)
In the further course of the program, the Heinrich Hertz Award was presented by Dr. Christoph Müller Netze BW GmbH to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jutta Hanson from the Technical University Darmstadt.
The poster session allowed young scientists and PhD students to present and discuss their research results. The poster prize of the EnBW Foundation was awarded by Prof. Dr. Wolfram Münch EnBW AG to Mr. Ankur Ghosh Chowdhurya. Who presented the results of his work titled
- "Synthesis of stable zinc oxide based catalysts for carrying out direct dehydrogenation of methanol to achieve (a) anhydrous formaldehyde & (b) highly selective hydrogen as by-product".
He has carried out this work as a BASF PhD student at IKFT/KIT in the framework of the NAMOSYN project.
Interesting talks and discussions on energy topics between the researchers of the KIT Energy Center and the guests from industry and science could be held in the afternoon and evening at the summer party in a convivial atmosphere in front of the KIT Casino. Many thanks to KIT Energy Center for organizing this nice event!
Hannover Messe 2022 | Hanover Fair 2022
Energy Solutions: From May 30 to June 2, 2022, KIT will present selected highlights from the technological development.
Energy Transition and Circular Economy
CarbonCycleLab
The CarbonCycleLab covers the complete process chain of the future carbon cycle: From residues and waste materials to basic chemical substances produced on their basis that will replace fossil fuels in chemical industry. The CarbonCycleLab combines the energy transition with circular economy and thus contributes to making future economy resource-efficient, climate-neutral, and competitive.
From a Climate-damaging Greenhouse Gas to an Economically Viable Material
NECOC – Negative Emissions by Separating Atmospheric CO2 into Economically Viable Carbon Black and Oxygen
A consortium of KIT institutes and industrial companies has developed an integrated process to achieve negative emissions. Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is decomposed into elemental carbon (carbon black, C) and oxygen (O2). The solid carbon in the form of microgranular powder is separated and then, as a high-priced educt, used in rubber, construction, or electrical industries.
Towards Competitive Renewable Fuels
KIT’s startup ICODOS has developed a technology that efficiently combines carbon dioxide separation and methanol synthesis and, hence, contributes to making renewable fuels competitive. Initial implementation will concentrate on biogas. However, it is planned to also use the technology for other CO2 point sources in cement industry, for instance. A pilot plant is under construction and will be integrated in KIT’s Energy Lab 2.0.
Further information
How do we close the carbon cycle in the circular economy?
Mr. Harald Ebner, Member of the German Parliament and Chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection visited KIT on March 31, 2022. In a discussion with scientists, Mr. Ebner informed himself, on the current context of the Ukraine crisis, how the dependence on fossil raw materials, such as oil, natural gas, and coal, can be overcome quickly.
On the one hand, this can be achieved by using biomass and carbon dioxide as a carbon source in industrial production processes, since today's industrial value networks are almost entirely based on fossil carbon. On the other hand, the carbon cycle must be closed within the framework of a circular economy. KIT is researching the technologies required for this:
- At the Carbon Cycle Lab we are researching the chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste;
- At the bioliq® pilot plant, we are researching how fuels and chemical feedstocks can be efficiently produced from residual biomass;
- At the Energy Lab 2.0, we are researching various technologies for storing renewable electricity in the form of chemical energy carriers.
The extraordinary importance of plastics recycling is due to the following reasons: Few of today's products are made of only one type of plastic, which could be recycled by simple mechanical collection by type. The processing of multiple types of plastics with additives for specific functions in laptops, cars, packaging and construction plastics makes it necessary to separate them back into their basic chemical building blocks. Pyrolysis is a chemical recycling process that converts plastic waste into gaseous, liquid and solid products in an inert atmosphere and at elevated temperature to replace fossil petrochemical feedstocks. So far, only a very small part of the world's annual plastic production (> 350 million tons) is actually recycled, therefore these techniques are crucial for a Circular Carbon Economy to implement the European Green Deal and become climate neutral by 2050.
Application and Research Fields Hydrogen
Hydrogen can be produced by renewable energy through electrolysis of water, methane pyrolysis of biogas or pyrolysis and gasification of residual biomass and waste. This green hydrogen can be used in the steel industry and for the production of basic chemicals and PtX products in the chemical industry. This allows a defossilization of the industrial sector, which until now has used fossil energy and fossil material sources. An application in the mobility sector is also possible where the direct use of electricity from renewable energies is impossible.
We are actively involved in the fields of production, storage, transport, distribution, application and cross-cutting issues. >>> More information
New KIT Graduate School ENZo
The new graduate school ENZo offers the next generation of young researchers the opportunity to apply interdisciplinary knowledge in application-oriented projects that can visibly contribute to the transformation of the energy system.
Future researchers are characterized not only by their desire to understand how developments and technologies can be embedded in the overall context of the energy system, but also by their desire to contribute to its sustainable design. MTET themes such as
- Renewable Energy,
- Sector Coupling Industry - Electricity, Heat, Chemical Energy (Sources), and
- Circular Economy - Use of Raw Materials and Energy
are holisticly combined in the "Real World Projects" with the important viewpoints and aspects such as
- Machine Learning and Digital Tools
- Technoeconomics Assessment, Interaction with Society, Acceptance and Social Developments.
Embedded in the manifold technological and scientific possibilities at the KIT Energy Center, ENZo creates a unique development environment for PhD students.

... combines electric, thermal & chemical energy flows as well as new information & communication technologies as the only infrastructure of this kind in Germany.
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Subject of the Science Year 2020/21 plays an important role in the MTET Topics Chemical Energy Carriers and Ressource & Energy Efficiency.
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MTET contents presented in the new look KIT issue: Closing the plastics loop / 42 / Hydrogen test center / 50 / Li extraction by geothermal plants / 57 /
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