Research news

Sixty years ago, Catholic bishops and cardinals convened in Rome at the Second Vatican Council to adapt and reorient the church to a changing world. Since 2016, more than 150 scholars have been researching what the Council has achieved worldwide to date – and what it has not. Among them is Urszula Pękala, who has been a Professor of Church and Theological History at Saarland University since 2025. [...]

Conventional lithium-ion batteries contain problematic substances such as nickel and cobalt, and the solvents used to coat the electrode materials are also toxic. Materials scientists at Saarland University are therefore working to develop environmentally friendly alternatives. By introducing finely dispersed iron oxide into tiny, highly porous, hollow carbon spheres developed by Professor Michael Elsaesser at the University of Salzburg, the Saarbrücken team has achieved very promising results. [...]

Woman, man, non-binary? The social construct of gender determines many aspects of our lives: from the name we receive at birth and the clothes we wear to the education we receive. Gender is deeply personal and at the same time politically controversial. It therefore may come as a surprise that analytic philosophy has paid little attention to the concept of gender. Viktoria Knoll, a researcher at Saarland University, is fundamentally examining gender with around one million euros funding. [...]

Microplastics are a major environmental concern. These tiny plastic particles can now be found everywhere – in rivers, seas and on land. Not only are they highly persistent, they are also suspected of being toxic to living organisms – and thus pose a threat to ecosystems and to human health. In a joint project funded by the EU and the Saarland state government, Saarland University and htw saar are researching ways to remove these difficult-to-degrade plastic particles efficiently from water.
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Amid all the current geopolitical crises, climate change has slipped somewhat from the public radar. Yet it remains one of the most significant long-term threats to human coexistence on Earth. A major contributory factor is the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂), which accelerates global warming. [...]

Mental health problems among young people have risen sharply. Many have developed fears about the future in the wake of the Covid pandemic, the climate crisis and global conflicts. This makes it all the more important to support young people in managing stress and mental health challenges – and to help them build and maintain mental resilience. [...]

The war in Ukraine is a polarising issue – not only among political parties, but also among individual citizens. Martin Ulrich, a sociologist at Saarland University, has used Austrian data to show that Austrians' party preferences lead to significant differences in their assessment of how important peace in Europe is for Austrian politics and what they think of refugees.
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The global skin care company Beiersdorf and the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) on the Saarbrücken university campus have entered into a long-term, exclusive partnership. In this collaboration they aim to investigate the role of the skin microbiome in maintaining healthy skin. The goal is to identify natural products produced by microorganisms on the skin that have a positive effect on skin balance. [...]

Industrial wastewater often contains oils and fats that can pollute our rivers and seas. Companies are therefore subject to strict regulations before treated water may be discharged into the environment. A new joint project between inomat GmbH, Saarland University of Applied Sciences (htw saar) and Saarland University aims to develop advanced filter membranes capable of reliably removing these contaminants in a resource-efficient manner. [...]

When red blood cells are centrifuged in a density-gradient medium, they form a striking banded pattern. The cells arrange themselves into vivid red stripes containing high concentrations of red blood cells with paler bands containing far fewer red blood cells in between. The lowest density red cells are found in the uppermost red band while those with the highest density are located in the lowest band. Until now, scientists believed this was caused by uneven water loss as cells age. [...]