Xnovo PhD prize awarded at Danscatt 2026

The prize for this year’s best Danscatt PhD thesis was awarded to Bjørt Oladottir Joensen, DTU Physics (supervised by Brian Seger). 

The committee regarded Bjørt’s thesis, Understanding Interactions Between Carbon Dioxide, Carbonate and Anion Exchange Membranes for Electrochemical Operation, to be an impressive piece of work. Bjørt used five different Danscatt-related techniques – WAXS, SAXS, XAS, XRF, and tomography – and contributed with notable methodological developments in order to enable novel in-operando studies of CO2 electrolysis devices. Furthermore, her PhD research demonstrates a clear innovative impact and she has successfully secured independent funding to commercialize her findings through a pre-startup at DTU

The prize-winner presented her work at the Danscatt Annual Meeting 2026, hosted by University of Copenhagen.

The PhD award is sponsored by Xnovo, to encourage new young talents within the field of x-ray and neutron science.