Materials Horizons and Journal of Materials Chemistry A were proud to sponsor two awards at the Symposium for Layered Materials for Sustainable Energy Conversion and Storage at the Materials for Sustainable Development Spring Conference 2026 (MATSUS26), which took place from the 23rd to the 27th of March 2026, in Barcelona, Spain.
Oral Prize sponsored by Materials Horizons
Gabriel Ali Atta Diab
Extending the Visible-Light Response of Poly(heptazine imide) via Controlled Sulfur Incorporation
Gabriel Ali Atta Diab holds a BSc degree in Chemistry from the University of BrasÃlia and is currently a PhD candidate at the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ivo Freitas Teixeira. His research focuses on the photocatalytic production of hydrogen using crystalline carbon nitrides, particularly poly(heptazine imide) (PHI) and poly(triazine imide) (PTI) systems. During his PhD, he conducted a research internship at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany, in the group of Prof. Dr. Bettina V. Lotsch, where he worked on the synthesis and structural characterization of PHI/PTI materials to optimize their photocatalytic performance.
Poster Prize sponsored by Journal of Materials Chemistry A
Dr. Mete Batuhan Durukan
Understanding the effect of free water on the intercalation mechanism in TiS2
Dr. Mete Batuhan Durukan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU), working under the supervision of Dr. Simon Fleischmann. He received his Ph.D. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Middle East Technical University (Turkey) in 2023. In 2024, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship and joined HIU in July 2025. His current research focuses on investigating the degradation mechanisms of TiSâ‚‚ in aqueous systems.
