November 2021: We welcome three new members to the group. Ilya Popov comes from Moscow, Russia (MSci with Prof. Andrei Tchougréeff); he has started his PhD.
Sadegh Ghaderzadeh moved from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden (PhD with Prof. Arkady Krasheninnikov); he is a newly appointed PDRA in Computational Modelling of Nanocluster Dynamics and Formation by Magtnetron Sputtering.
Aleksandra Foerster will continue her PhD investigations on quantum chemical characterisation and design of quantum dots for sensing applications (former PhD supervisor: Prof. Nick Besley).
November 2021: Josh Baptiste awarded the Degree of PhD in Chemistry. Well done, Josh! You have been part of the group for 6 years, and you went from strength to strength. What a wonderful journey it has been - from MSci student to an accomplished scientist. Many congratulations, Dr. Baptiste (from Nazareth Street)!
November 2021: Maggie Stankiewicz awarded the Degree of MRes in Chemistry. Maggie next takes up a PhD with Prof. Damien Thompson at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Good luck, Maggie!
October 2021: Elena was appointed as a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow (01/10/2021 - 30/09/2022). The Fellowship provides opportunities for experienced academics to focus on full-time research by relieving them of all teaching and administrative duties.
May 2021: Rachel Heelas has successfully secured an Undergraduate Research Bursary from the Royal Society of Chemistry to pursue a summer research project in the group. Rachel will be working on machine learning assisted computational screening of porous materials for gas separation applications. Welcome to the group, Rachel!
February 2021: Elena gives a research seminar at the Warwick Centre for Predictive Modelling on the development of high-throughput screening protocols suitable for designing mixed matrix membranes for gas separations.
A 133Xe atom adsorbed on the lipid membrane of a respiratory virus: e.g. SARS, H1N1, influenza. 133Xe is released from a molten salt nuclear reactor; its separation from 85Kr is needed.
February 2021: Our collaborative study with engineers from Lancaster University, led by Prof. Claude Degueldre, was published in an open access journal of Medicine in Novel Technology and Devices. It shows that short life fission gases released from a molten salt reactor can be used for radiopharmacy, and it contains Izzy's review of the effective Xe/Kr separations using porous materials.
February 2021: Our study on selective gas uptake and rotational dynamics in a (3,24)-connected metal-organic framework material has been accepted for publication
in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
January 2021: 4th Midlands Computational Chemistry Meeting 2021 took place online, supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry Faraday Division, the Institute of Physics Computational Physics Group and CCP5. Elena gave an invited talk on "High-throughput computational screening of porous materials for biogas purification".
Josh and Abbie received poster prizes for their respective studies on "The dielectrophoretic interactions between charged particles" and "Modelling the fabrication of binary nanoparticle superlattices". Well done, both!
January 2021: A 5-year multidisciplinary Programme grant "Metal Atoms on Surfaces and Interfaces (MASI) for Sustainable Future" is funded by EPSRC. In MASI, a team of scientists from four UK Universities (Nottingham, Cardiff, Cambridge, Birmingham) with 12 industrial and academic partners will make advances in the use of metals in a broad range of technologies focusing on reduction of our dependence on critically endangered elements.
MASI will be launched later this year and work on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and its conversion into useful chemicals; the production of 'green' ammonia as an alternative zero-emission fuel and a new vector for hydrogen storage; and a provision of more sustainable fuel cells and electrolyser technologies.
