Christina Roth Awarded Adolf Messer Prize

In the evening of 2th March 2010 Junior Professor Dr. Christina Roth received the Adolf Messer Prize, which comes with prize money of €50,000, for her research into new materials for fuel cells.

The Adolf Messer Prize is the most valuable scientific prize of the TU Darmstadt and is awarded each year for outstanding achievements in the sectors of natural sciences, medicine, engineering sciences, and economic and social sciences. Christina Roth, Junior Professor in the field of renewable energies at the TU Darmstadt, will receive the prize for her research into new materials for fuel cells intended for future use in cars or laptops.

The aim of Christina Roth’s research is to produce more powerful and longer-lived fuel cells with the help of catalytic converters. Among other things, Ms Roth and her team have developed a method which enables the functional mechanisms of catalytic converters to be monitored during operation, which represents a major advance in enhancing fuel cells. Ms Roth plans to use the prize money – which is intended specifically for the research project – to develop, among other things, further metering methods for characterising the new catalytic converters while the fuel cells are in operation. She also wishes to extend her research to other fields which are relevant to energy, such as the catalytic conversion of car exhaust gas.

Adolf Messer founded the Messer company in Höchst am Main in 1898. At that time the company focused on producing acetylene generators. Adolf Messer’s interest in acetylene lighting had been aroused by lectures in Darmstadt. As a student he developed safety features for acetylene generators, for which he was granted his first patents in 1902 and 1903. Today the Messer Group is one of the leading industrial gas companies and is active in 30 countries with more than 60 operative companies. Around 5,260 employees produced an expected consolidated turnover of approx. €800 million in 2009.

Messer is one of the leading industrial gas companies, and is active in over 30 countries in Europe and Asia, as well as Peru, with over 60 operating companies. Its international activities are managed from Frankfurt am Main, whilst management of core technical functions – logistics, engineering, production and applications engineering – is undertaken from Krefeld. In 2008, about 5,260 employees generated estimated consolidated turnover of approx. €800 million.
From acetylene to xenon, the Messer Group has one of the most diverse product portfolios on the market – it produces industrial gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, helium, shielding gases for welding, specialty gases, medical gases and many different gas mixtures.
The Messer Group has state-of-the-art research and competence centers in which it develops applied technologies for the use of gases in almost every sector of industry, in food technology and environmental technology, medicine as well as research and science.

Messer Group GmbH
Vice President
Corporate Communications
Diana Buss
Gahlingspfad 31
47803 Krefeld

Phone: +49 (0) 2151 7811-251
Fax: +49 (0) 2151 7811-598
Email: diana.buss@messergroup.com
www.messergroup.com

This release was published on openPR.