Graduate Nicklas Nietzschmann has been awarded the Johann Andreas Schubert Prize by the Saxon metal and electrical industry for his Master’s thesis.
Award Ceremony | Johann-Andreas-Schubert Prize
Award Winner | HTWK graduate Nicklas Nietzschmann, M.Sc.
Graduate of the Master’s programme in Industrial Engineering and Mechanical Engineering (M.Sc.) Nicklas Nietzschmann was awarded the 2026 Johann-Andreas-Schubert Prize in the category of Materials Science/Materials Technology for his outstanding Master’s thesis entitled ‘Development of a hard-phase-reinforced iron-based alloy’.
The Johann-Andreas-Schubert Prize was presented at a ceremony organised by SACHSENMETALL, the professional association of the Saxon metal and electrical industry, on 21 September 2026 at the Talent Campus of the BMW Group’s Leipzig plant.
Matthias Matz (Chief Executive of SACHSENMETALL), Anja Ziese (Managing Director of the Johann-Andreas-Schubert Foundation), the Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, and Dr Jörg Brückner (President of the Employers’ Association of the Saxon Economy) honoured outstanding Master’stheses and dissertations from Saxony’s universities with the Johann-Andreas-Schubert Prize and also honoured the best apprentices, graduates of dual study programmes and training companies in Saxony’s metal and electrical industry.
The award-winning Master’s thesis ‘Development of a hard-phase-reinforced iron-based alloy’
In his Master’s thesis, HTWK graduate Nicklas Nietzschmann, M.Sc., investigated the applicability of high-temperature nitrocarburising for the development of a hard-phase-reinforced iron-based alloy. The aim is to develop a cost-effective alternative to WC-Co cemented carbides, as these are based on critical raw materials that are mined under conditions that are, in some cases, precarious.
The Master’s thesis was supervised by Dipl.-Ing. Lukas Hanisch and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Paul Rosemann (Chair of Materials Engineering) from the Faculty of Engineering at HTWK Leipzig and is thematically embedded within the IRONHEART research project.
Through thermochemical heat treatments, an extreme increase in hardness from 175 HV to 900 HV was achieved in a stainless steel, which corresponds to more than 500 per cent of the initial hardness and demonstrates great potential for application in component testing. The cause of this increase in hardness is the high proportion of hard phases, which was produced in the materials engineering laboratories at HTWK through thermochemical heat treatments and verified by microstructural analyses using light and scanning electron microscopy.
The findings of this Master’s thesis make a significant contribution to the success of the IRONHEART research project, which is currently being funded as a collaborative PhD project under the Federal-State ‘FH-Personal’ programme within the Pro.Motion sub-project and is being carried out at HTWK Leipzig. The numerous and publishable findings of the Master’s thesis will be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming months.
Saxony Metal and Electrical Industry Award
The Johann-Andreas-Schubert Prize
To promote young scientists, the Saxon Metal and Electrical Industry Association (SACHSENMETALL), in collaboration with the Johann-Andreas-Schubert Foundation, awards the Johann-Andreas-Schubert Prize for outstanding scientific work with particular practical relevance. On 21 September 2026, the prize was awarded for the 19th time for the best Master’s theses, diploma theses and doctoral theses in the fields of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering/process and energy engineering, and materials science/materials technology.
