I am a Physicist with a PhD in electrochemistry, working as research group leader in Switzerland. I research on ceramic energy materials for fuel cells, gas sensors, batteries, and photoelectrochemical cells (solar fuel cells), for which I was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship by the European Commission.
A mathematically inclined experimentalist, I rank with a prestigious low Erdös Number of 3, which I am owing to Keith M. Briggs and his association with George Szekeres. I have organized numerous symposia with the Materials Research Society and I was MRS 2015 Meeting Chair.
Foreign Policy magazine has listed me as one of the Leading Global Thinkers of 2014, along with two of my fabulous team members, and with later 2020 Chemistry Nobel Prize winners Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Carpentier.
My interest is the causal relationship of electronic structure, and electronic and ionic transport properties in semiconductor electrodes and solid electrolytes, and synthesis of inorganic/bio-organic hybrid structures by self organisation, pattern formation and programmed assembly. Synchrotron and neutron methods are my major analytical tools, along with electrochemical, optical and electroanalytic transport studies.
My research group and I, together with great colleagues worldwide employ and develop operando and in situ methods. We study components of batteries, fuel cells and photoelectrochemical cells online during realistic operation conditions and thus understanding at the molecular level how synthesis, processing and operation conditions affect the functionality, integrity and lifetime.
I have represented the synchrotron user community for several years as User Board Member in Switzerland, Europe, and in the United States. My book on X-ray methods for electrochemical energy conversion and storage is available since 2017; you can order it from De Gruyter and many other book stores. My book on electrochemical energy systems is available since November 2018.
In 2016 I began driving a hydrogen fuel cell car for my business trips. Back then, every such trip was a scientific expedition, an adventure. Since, I have travelled from Zürich over 25’000 km across Europe up to Amsterdam, and down to Venice and Bologna. Read my book “Von der Nordsee bis Venedig”.
The 2nd edition of this hydrogen anxiety book is now available at amazon. It includes new adventures from 2019, specifically how geopolitics determines the fate of electromobility, and how geopolitics kept me from travelling to China. There is now also a non-color version of my book which cost only half the prize.
Since 2012 have I been active in a European consortium which aims at getting a large scale funding for a flagship project on artificial photosynthesis for a circular economy, known as the Sunrise action.
Be ready to order my latest book: quantumelectrodynamics of photosynthesis. This 3rd book with De Gruyter finalizes my trilogy on sustainability of life and electrochemical energy storage and conversion.
While I am not a professor myself, most of my former staff and students and academic guests have become academic leaders in Europe, Asia and Africa, where they now hold leading tenured positions as professors, research chairs and research directors, many of which based on my personal recommendation to their home institutes.
Occasionally I serve on diplomatic missions in the United States, Africa and Asia, and Europe. Much of my work in the last five years dealt with the human capacity building in academia and research in South Africa and neighbouring countries.
Contact me by email: artur.braun (at) alumni.ethz.ch
Artur Braun is not supporting any mainstream social media.
No Twitter. No Facebook. No Google. No YouTube.
