Another joint paper with the Manners group!

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Faul Research Group

Another joint paper with our long-standing collaborators, the Manners Group (now at the University of Victoria). Charlie (lead author) and Liam (another former joint student) contributed to a paper on the surface patterning of uniform 2D platelet block co-micelles – published in ACS Macro Letters! We show the formation of rectangular platelets containing two block copolymers with different coronal chemistries. On addition of a solvent that is only able to solvate the corona of one block, colloidally stable micelles with patterned surfaces via coronal collapse are formed.

Well done to all involved in this productive and long-standing collaboration!

Welcome Merve!

Posted on October 12, 2020 by Faul Research Group

Great to have new MSc (Research) student Merve join the group from Turkey! Merve is just settling in to Bristol, and will be starting her lab work very soon, working on conjugated microporous polymers for CO₂ capture and conversion!

Welcome Merve!

Welcome to Connie and Julia!

Posted on September 30, 2020 by Faul Research Group

Great to have the first new graduate students of the year joining the FRG! Connie (left) and Julia (middle) are both on the Cabot Institute’s Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges degree programme, and about to start their projects in our laboratories!

Here they are, COVID safe, and socially distanced, on their first day in the lab with Veronica (right). Welcome! Trust that you will have a inspiring and productive year, despite things being done very differently than before!

Paper with Wei and Yaozu in Chemistry of Materials!

Posted on September 16, 2020 by Faul Research Group

Continuing the Faul Research Group’s long-standing collaboration with Yaozu and Wei (and Yaozu’s group at Donghua University in Shanghai), our latest paper just appeared in Chemistry of Materials! And of course great to have Arne Thomas (TU Berlin) involved in the study as well!

The study, entitled “Conjugated Microporous Polymer Network Grafted Carbon Nanotube Fibers with Tunable Redox Activity for Efficient Flexible Wearable Energy Storage” explores novel fiber-shaped supercapacitors (FSCs) as promising flexible energy storage devices.

Congrats to all involved – especially Wei as first author of this very nice study!

Joint paper with Jie!

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Faul Research Group

In a new study that just appeared online in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, work with former group member Jie continued to explore Hansen Solubility Parameters as a tool to tune structure and function in porous materials! Congrats Jie!

Here we expand our recently reported Bristol-Xi’an Jiaotong (BXJ) approach using simple salts to fine-tune the porosity of conjugated microporous materials synthesized by various reaction approaches, including Buchwald-Hartwig (BH), Sonogashira-Hagihara, oxidative coupling and Suzuki cross-coupling.

Read the full paper entitled “Exploiting Hansen Solubility Parameters to Tune Porosity and Function in Conjugated Microporous Polymers” here – published open access, so free to download!

Nan and Basi’s Twitter posters!

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Faul Research Group

Nan (joint PhD student with close collaborator Natalie Fey) and Basi are taking part in the RSC’s Porous Materials Interest Group’s Twitter Poster Competition! Fantastic effort from both! Well done!

Find them on Twitter, or Follow @faulresearch on Twitter to stay up to date with the latest news.

UKIERI/SPARC India&UK Online Workshop

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Faul Research Group

Various members of the FRG joined an online workshop today. The focus was on “2D and Nanostructured phenomenon, materials and devices”, with speakers from both India and the UK (including Charl!).

It was a great opportunity to connect to colleagues from the IIT Delhi, including Professor V. Ram Gopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi, Professor Neil Robertson, School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, amongst other.

Thank you to UKIERI and SPARC programmes for funding our collaborative research with Professors Patra, Mishra and Manners, and for hosting this online event!

Paper with collaborators from UCL now published in AFM!

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Faul Research Group

A paper, with contributions from Pan and Charl, with collaborators at UCL (Schroeder group), has now appeared in Advanced Functional Materials!

The work, led by Bob Schroeder, and first author Zilu Liu, describes how the thermoelectric properties of coordination polymers can be controlled by ligand design. The synthesis of three different organic ligands and their incorporation into organometallic coordination polymers with distinct thermoelectric properties is presented. Notably, it was demonstrated, for the first time, that the n- or p-type thermoelectric character of the OMCP materials can be tuned via organic ligand modifications.

Well done to all involved!

Back in the labs!

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Faul Research Group

It is with great excitement that the first team (of three) started to do lab work again today! It was a long break, but we are all very excited to go back – and grateful for the fantastic job done by the University of Bristol’s Estate Services, and Prof Paul Pringle and his safety team in the School of Chemistry, to ensure a safe return for all!

The lab was cleaned and decluttered on Friday and yesterday – it has not been this neat, tidy and clean since we moved in! A big thank you to everyone who contributed to make this new way of working (with socially distanced working, seating arrangements and one-way system, amongst many new procedures!) possible.