Already for a long time electrochemistry and electrochemical devices have a large impact on everybody's daily life. Prominent examples are batteries in notebooks, cell phones and other consumer electronics, parts electrochemically coated with metals, from simple screws to functional and decorative chromium-plate components of automobiles, and, on the down-side, corrosion processes. Within the rapid expansion of renewable energies and the widespread deployment of fuel cell and battery electric vehicles, the role of electrochemistry will further increase, making it a key technology for the 21st century.

Along these lines, our research focuses on studying fundamental electrochemical processes with application potential in electrochemical energy conversion and storage and in materials technology. This concerns research on metal ion batteries, on electrocatalysis fundamentals and on electrocatalysts for fuel cell applications, as well as the electrodeposition of refractory metals from ionic liquids.

Our research strongly benefits from local, national and international collaboration. We are member of the Chair I6 "Robotics, Artifical Intelligence and Embedded Systems" of Prof. A. Knoll in the Institute of Informatics. Within TUM, we strongly collaborate with the group of Prof. Bandarenka in the Physics Department, and the groups of Prof. Heiz and Prof. Gasteiger in the Chemistry Department. In Germany, there is, among others, collaboration with Prof. A. Bund at TU Ilmenau, Prof. F. Endres at TU Clausthal, Prof. Peter Strasser at TU Berlin, Prof.T. Lampke at TU Chemnitz, Dr. A. Dietz at Fraunhofer Institute in Braunschweig, and Dr. R. Böck at the "Forschungsinstitut Edelmetalle und Metallchemie" in Schwäbisch-Gmünd. Internationally, we collaborate within the Inspire project with institutional and industrial research groups in France, Finland, England and Germany. A special emphasis is on the collaboration with China that has been established since 2010. Especially to be mentioned is the Joint Research Institute for Advanced Power Sources for Electric Vehicles (IAPS) between TUM and the Tsinghua-University in Beijing. This virtual institute participated in several electromobility related research projects where both Tsinghua University and TUM were partner, and is also currently participating in a new research project on an innovative battery management system.