Dr.-Ing. Ronny Tobias Zimmermann awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society
Chemical energy storage made possible with the help of innovative catalysts
Dr.-Ing. Ronny Tobias Zimmermann, team leader in the Process Systems Engineering research group, was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society on June 25, 2025. He was honored for his research work in the field of reactor and catalyst pellet design for load-flexible chemical energy storage using Power-to-X processes.
The expansion of renewable energies will inevitably lead to situations in which electricity generation will exceed demand. It is therefore imperative that science and industry develop efficient storage solutions for these surpluses. Power-to-X processes are the crucial technology in this regard. Dr. Ronny Tobias Zimmermann has made significant progress in this area with his dissertation.
He researched core-shell catalyst pellets that enable flexible operation of power-to-X processes. The catalyst pellets prevent problematic temperature increases at high product yields, even under dynamic conditions that arise from fluctuating renewable energy availability. The catalyst pellets can be used in existing reactors without additional equipment, offering an economically attractive solution for large-scale energy storage.
About Dr.-Ing. Ronny Tobias Zimmermann
Ronny Tobias Zimmermann was born in 1993 in Nuremberg. He received his Bachelor degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen in 2016 and his Master degree in 2018. From 2019 to 2024 he was pursuing his Ph.D. thesis as a member of the International Max-Planck Research School for Advanced Methods in Process and Systems Engineering and scientific employee at the Max Planck Institute Magdeburg and at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. In the beginning of 2024, he worked as a Simulation Engineer at Turn Energy GmbH, Munich, before he took up his position as Team Leader in the Process Systems Engineering group at the Max Planck-Institute Magdeburg in April 2024.
The Otto Hahn Medal awarded by the Max Planck Society
Every year since 1978, the Max Planck Society has awarded the Otto Hahn Medal to young researchers for outstanding scientific achievements, mostly in connection with their doctorate.The Medal is endowed with 7,500 euros of prize money. The aim of the award is to motivate particularly talented individuals to pursue a university or research career.
The 76th Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society was held for the first time in the State Capital Magdeburg from June 24 to 26, 2025.