Skip to main content
  • Paul Scherrer Institut PSI
  • PSI Research, Labs & User Services

Digital User Office

  • Digital User Office
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)
Search
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)

Hauptnavigation

  • Research at PSIOpen mainmenu item
    • Research Initiatives
    • Ethics and Research integrity
    • Scientific Highlights
    • Scientific Events
    • Scientific Career
    • PSI-FELLOW
    • PSI Data Policy
  • Research Divisions and LabsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Research with Neutrons and Muons
    • Photon Science
    • Energy and Environment
    • Nuclear Energy and Safety
    • Biology and Chemistry
    • Scientific Computing, Theory and Data
    • Large Research Facilities
  • Facilities and InstrumentsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Large Research Facilities
    • Facilities
    • PSI Facility Newsletter
  • PSI User ServicesOpen mainmenu item
    • User Office
    • Methods at the PSI User Facilities
    • Proposals for beam time
    • Proposal Deadlines
    • Data Analysis Service (PSD)
    • EU support programmes
  • New ProjectsOpen mainmenu item
    • SLS 2.0
    • IMPACT
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR

Digital User Office (mobile)

  • Digital User Office

You are here:

  1. PSI Home
  2. Labs & User Services
  3. Energy and Environment (ENE)

Secondary navigation

Energy and Environment (ENE)

  • About ENE
    • Organisational Structure
    • Strategy
    • Spin-offs
  • People
    • Alumni
  • Laboratories
  • Projects
    • Archive
      • SCCER Heat and Electricity Storage (HaE)
  • Teaching and Education
    • Semester Project Topics
    • Master Thesis Openings
    • Internships
  • News & Highlights
  • Publications
  • Seminars
    • ENE Seminars archive
  • Conferences
ene top.jpg

Energy and Environment Research Division

Research at PSI comprises all aspects of human energy use, with the ultimate goal of promoting development towards a sustainable energy supply system. Technologies are being advanced for the utilization of renewable energy sources, low-loss energy storage, efficient conversion, and low emission energy use. Experimental and model-based assessment of these emissions forms the basis of a comprehensive assessment of economic, environmental and social consequences, for both present and future energy supply systems.

Division Head: Prof. Dr. Thomas Justus Schmidt


Energy Briefing Event 2022

On June 28th, 2022, the Energy Divisions (ENE and NES) at PSI hosted their first Energy Briefing Event at the Kursaal in Bern. Knowledgeable voices from industry, research and government shared insights in a dialogue on the feasibility of the Net Zero goal and what next steps are required to achieve this collectively.

A big thank you to Daniela Decurtins (GazEnergy), Particia Sandmeier (Hitachi Energy), Martin Naef (ABB), Pascal Previdoli (BFE), Thomas Schmidt (PSI), Christian Verhoeven (GE), Peter Richner (Empa), Andreas Pautz (PSI) and our Moderator Stephan Lendi for their valuable contributions and insights!

Highlights & News

13 October 2016

Labile peroxides in secondary organic aerosol

Aerosols, suspended fine liquid or solid particles in the air we breathe, play a central role in many environmental processes through their influence on climate, the hydrological cycle, and their adverse effects on human health. While the mechanisms by which aerosol particles affect our health remain uncertain, the atmospheric oxidation of organic vapors has been shown to be related to the formation of oxygenated organic matter with high oxidative potential, the so-called reactive oxygen species (ROS).

Read more
7 July 2016

Sun-Petrol

Media Releases Energy and Climate Renewable Energies

Despite its great potential, solar energy still faces one big problem: the sun doesn’t always shine and its energy is hard to store. Now, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the ETH Zurich have unveiled a chemical process that uses the sun’s thermal energy to convert carbon dioxide and water directly into high-energy fuels: a procedure developed on the basis of a ground-breaking material combination of cerium oxide and rhodium.

Read more
This is a text from the PSI media archive. The contents may be out-of-date.
26 May 2016

Present-day measurements yield insights into clouds of the past

Media Releases Energy and Climate Environment

Researchers have shown how fine particles are formed from natural substances in the atmosphere. These findings will improve our knowledge about clouds in the pre-industrial era and thus will contribute to a more accurate understanding of both the past and future evolution of our climate.

Read more
This is a text from the PSI media archive. The contents may be out-of-date.
24 May 2016
The results indicate a way with which nitrogen oxides deriving from human activities may boost secondary organic aerosol production from biogenic volatile organic compounds.
SVOC and LVOC: volatile organic compounds. 
LVOC and ELVOC: extremely low volatility compounds
ROI:  reactive oxygen intermediates

Organic Nitrate Contribution to New Particle Formation and Growth in Secondary Organic Aerosols from α-Pinene Ozonolysis

The chemical kinetics of organic nitrate production during new particle formation and growth of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) were investigated using the short-lived radioactive tracer 13N in flow-reactor studies of α-pinene oxidation with ozone. Direct and quantitative measurements of the nitrogen content indicate that organic nitrates accounted for ∼40% of SOA mass during initial particle formation, decreasing to ∼15% upon particle growth to the accumulation-mode size range (>100 nm). Experiments with OH scavengers and kinetic model results suggest that organic peroxy radicals formed by α-pinene reacting with secondary OH from ozonolysis are key intermediates in the organic nitrate formation process

Read more
10 March 2015

Pb pollution from leaded gasoline in South America in the context of a 2000-year metallurgical history

Exploitation of the extensive polymetallic deposits of the Andean Altiplano in South America since precolonial times has caused substantial emissions of neurotoxic lead (Pb) into the atmosphere; however, its historical significance compared to recent Pb pollution from leaded gasoline is not yet resolved. We present a comprehensive Pb emission history for the last two millennia for South America, based on a continuous, high-resolution, ice core record from Illimani glacier. Illimani is the highest mountain of the eastern Bolivian Andes and is located at the northeastern margin of the Andean Altiplano.

Read more
11 July 2014
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) records from an Alpine ice core (Fiescherhorn glacier, Switzerland)

Polychlorinated biphenyls in glaciers

We present a highly time-resolved historical record of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from an Alpine ice core (Fiescherhorn glacier, Switzerland). Introduced in the 1940s, PCBs were widely used industrial chemicals. Because of their persistence they are still found in the environment, long after their production phase-out. The Fiescherhorn ice core record covers the entire time period of industrial use of PCBs, that is, 1940?2002. The total concentration of six PCBs varies from 0.5 to 5 ng/L and reveals a temporal trend, with an 8-fold increase from the early 1940s to the peak value in the 1970s.

Read more
14 February 2014
Estimated historical heavy metal (Cd, Cu, Sb, and Zn) emissions  from the territory of the former Soviet Union during the period 1935-1991 based on ice-core records from Belukha glacier in the Siberian Altai (star).

Ice-core based assessment of historical anthropogenic heavy metal (Cd, Cu, Sb, Zn) emissions in the Soviet Union

The development of strategies and policies aiming at the reduction of environmental exposure to air pollution requires the assessment of historical emissions. Although anthropogenic emissions from the extended territory of the Soviet Union (SU) considerably influenced concentrations of heavy metals in the Northern Hemisphere, Pb is the only metal with long-term historical emission estimates for this region available, whereas for selected other metals only single values exist.

Read more
17 December 2013

Experiments in the clouds – how soot influences the climate

Media Releases Energy and Climate Environment

PSI-researcher Martin Gysel receives prestigious European funding (ERC Consolidator Grant) for his studies on the role of soot in cloud formation and global warming.

Read more
This is a text from the PSI media archive. The contents may be out-of-date.
6 October 2013
teaserbild.jpg

Particle formation in the atmosphere – further aspect unveiled via the CLOUD experiment at CERN

Media Releases Energy and Climate Environment

Clouds consist of cloud droplets that are formed from tiny particles floating in the atmosphere. How these particles develop, however, largely remains a mystery. The formation of particles from amines and sulphuric acid has now been described for the first time à a milestone in atmospheric research.

Read more
This is a text from the PSI media archive. The contents may be out-of-date.
  • First page « First
  • Previous page ‹‹
  • …
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • Next page ››
  • Last page Last »

Sidebar

General Contact

Research Division Energy and Environment
Paul Scherrer Institut
5232 Villigen-PSI
Switzerland

 

Thomas


Division Head
Prof. Dr. Thomas J. Schmidt
Telephone: +41 56 310 57 65
E-mail: thomasjustus.schmidt@psi.ch

Area of Responsibility:

  • Head of Division
  • Overall responsibility
  • Strategy
  • Organizational development

ENE Staff

Denise_Verhoeven


Chief of Staff
Denise Verhoeven
+41 56 310 25 45
denise.verhoeven@psi.ch

Area of Responsibility:

  • Personnel & Finances
  • Process management
  • Organizational development
  • Health & Safety (EHS)
  • Deputy of the Division Head

Jörg


Dr. Jörg Roth
+41 56 310 53 96
joerg.roth@psi.ch

Area of Responsibility:

  • Interlaboratory Coordination
  • Information Safety Officer
  • Building Manager OLGA

Ursula


Ursula Ludgate
+41 56 310 20 92
ursula.ludgate@psi.ch

Area of Responsibility:

  • Divisional Assistant

Michelle


Michelle Serina Kalousek
+41 56 310 24 75
michelle.kalousek@psi.ch

Area of Responsibility:

  • Internal Communication
  • Coordination with AKO on external communication topics

ENE Open positions

current opening at Research Division Energy and Environment

top

Footer

Paul Scherrer Institut

Forschungsstrasse 111
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland

Telephone: +41 56 310 21 11
Telefax: +41 56 310 21 99

How to find us
Contact

Visitor Centre psi forum
School Lab iLab (in German)
Center for Proton Therapy
PSI Education Centre
PSI Guest House
PSI Gastronomie (in German)
psi forum shop

Service & Support

  • Phone Book
  • User Office
  • Accelerator Status
  • PSI Publications
  • Suppliers
  • E-Billing
  • Computing
  • Safety (in German)

Career

  • Working at PSI
  • Job Opportunities
  • Training and further education
  • Career Center
  • Vocational Training (in German)
  • PSI Education Center

For the media

  • PSI in brief
  • Facts and Figures
  • Media corner
  • Media Releases
  • Social Media

Follow us: Twitter (in English) LinkedIn Youtube Facebook Instagram Issuu RSS

Footer legal

  • Imprint
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Editors' login