Project meetings for MaxWater

MaxWater's aim is to strengthen the collaboration between the Max Planck Institutes and the external partners, Therefore, regular project meetings are very important for the progress. So far, the following meetings took place.

MaxWater meeting on HYDRATION, Jan. 30, 2021, Mainz

MaxWater participants met online for an online workshop to discuss the interaction and solubilisation of molecules in water – so-called hydration. Amongst other topics, we discussed how water and other ions help stabilizing DNA and RNA? How do proteins arrange water and ions in their vicinity to induce formation of minerals? How can we improve our experiments to obtain a better spatial resolution in mapping water near interfaces and what complementary information can be obtained from molecular modelling?

MaxWater meeting on ICE, Jan. 26, 2021, Mainz

MaxWater participants met online for an online workshop on ice to discuss some peculiarities of water and ice: How does ice embedded in clay minerals melt? What is the molecular structure of the very ice surface and how do molecules adsorb onto such ice surfaces? How can we use this knowledge to better model cloud formation and what are the consequences for current climate models? With our widespread experimental and theoretical methods we are aiming at answering these questions.

MaxWater meeting on SPECIFIC ION EFFECTS, Jan. 21, 2020, Mainz

MaxWater PIs came together in Mainz to discuss together with Nico van der Vegt (Darmstadt) and Werner Kunz (Regensburg) to explore how we can better understand specific ion effects in water. The workshop aimed at addressing questions including: How differently sized ions affect the water structure at the surface of dissolved molecules, at the interphase to other minerals and air? How do these ion specificities eventually alter the macroscopic properties of the micro- and macro-interphases? 

MaxWater meeting, June 3, 2019, Mainz

Most of the MaxWater PIs, along with representatives from the Hamburg Water Initiative came together in Mainz to discuss existing joint projects, and come up with new questions or challenges we could possibly address, which included: Why is negative charge so much more prevalent than positive charge in biological entities? Can we understand how snowflakes shrink? How does ice conduct electricity? We are working on getting the answers to these questions.

General MaxWater meeting, Mar. 19, 2019, Berlin

Most of the MaxWater PIs, along with several coworkers and affiliated PIs, met for a one-day meeting in Berlin to discuss the scientific progress within the consortium and to make plans for new collaborations. It was a full and exciting day of presentations with intense discussions – ranging from new methods to purify water by freezing to novel methods to model the complex response of water in the terahertz range.

Water at Interfaces, Jan. 15-16, 2019, Okazaki (Japan)

Yuki Nagata, affiliated PI at the MPI for Polymer Research, organized a conference of "water at interfaces" at the institute of molecular science (IMS), Okazaki, Japan, together with researchers in IMS and Kobe University, Japan. The speakers came from Germany, Finland, Switzerland, China, Singapore, Korea, and Japan have given talks, and the participants have stimulated discussions on interfacial water.

Water Spectroscopy, Dec. 12, 2018, Berlin

This MaxWater workshop was aimed at identifying different methods to unravel the low-frequency (gigahertz to terahertz) response from both experimental and theoretical perspectives. Several scientists from outside the MaxWater network participated in this very lively meeting.

Ice, Adsorption and Chemistry on Ice, Nov. 23, 2018, Mainz

Several MaxWater researchers came together to discuss adsorption of small organic molecules on ice surfaces, as well as the nucleation of ice on inorganic mineral surfaces. The challenge is clearly to design and identify appropriate molecular-level experiments that are relevant for atmospheric physics and chemistry models.

Meeting with Hamburg Center for Molecular Water Science Initiative, Nov. 27, 2018, Hamburg

Mischa Bonn met with several representatives from the DESY Hamburg Center for Molecular Water Science Initiative to share know-how and discuss MaxWater's interest and support of the Hamburg efforts to initiate a Center for Molecular Water Science. The complementarity and partial overlap should warrant a constructive fruitful partnership between our initiatives, and we look forward to a fruitful collaboration.

Kick-off Meeting, Oct. 10, 2018, Mainz

At the kickoff meeting, all the PIs, along with several coworkers met for a one-day meeting in Mainz to discuss challenges with interfacial and confined water. After brief presentations by all attendees, a lively poster session with much discussion took place. At the end of the day, the consensus was that the day had been too short.







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