Author Archives: Faul Research Group

About Faul Research Group

This is the official website for the Faul Research Group, based in the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. Follow us on twitter @FaulResearch

UKIERI/SPARC India&UK Online Workshop

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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!

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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!

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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.

Charl speaking in Shanghai!

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Charl was invited to speak at the “Frontiers in Advanced Materials” meeting organised by the Shanghai Universities League Forum (SULF) 2020. This meeting was hosted by long-standing collaborators Prof Meifang Zhu and Prof Yaozu Liao at Donghua.


Exciting morning (in the UK!) of talks by colleagues from across the globe, including good friend Arne Thomas (TU Berlin) and Jiayin Yuan (Stockholm).

Kamran’s paper accepted!

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A paper by our collaborators at the National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing (Prof Zhixiang Wei and his group, with contributions from Charl) was just accepted. The lead author is Kamran, who visited last year and October (and still attends some group meetings and social events, virtually!)!

The paper, in the RSC’s Sustainable Energy & Fuels, discusses the use of a coaxial nanocomposite of an active anthraquinone-based Covalent Organic Framework (AQ-COF) and carbon nanotubes for Lithium Ion Battery applications. AQ-COF was grown on the surface of carbon nanotubes (AQ-COF@CNTs) through an in-situ polymerization to improve the conductivity and to facilitate the electrochemical properties. Please read here for further details! Congratulations to Kamran and the other authors!

Lockdown update

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It has been a while since we closed our labs down, and all of us went into lockdown! We are grateful that everyone in the group (and their families) are safe and well.

Zoom (and bluejeans and skype and WeChat!) has become our lifeblood for group meetings, coffee catch-ups, recipe exchanges, small-group meetings, writing papers, working together, exchanging very lame jokes and much more!

Royal Fort Gardens – Taken on the morning after the lab was shut down!

Keep well, and stay safe!

Final year project presentations!

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We enjoyed an exciting day of science earlier this week when all of our Final Year MSci Undergraduate students presented the results from their efforts of the past 5 months!

It was a great opportunity to learn about their research, but also to celebrate their success – EJ was one of the prize winners! Well done to all – fantastic job!

And, in true Faul Research Group style, we ended the day of science with a group meal!!

Luke’s paper appeared online!

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A paper on switchable azobenzene-based liquid crystals by Luke, who visited in July 2019, and supervised by collaborator Rico Tabor (and co-supervised by Charl!), just appeared online in the RSC’s PCCP.

The study, entitled “Structural relationships for the design of responsive azobenzene-based lyotropic liquid crystals” explored light-responsive binary (azobenzene + solvent) lyotropic liquid crystals (LCs), and investigated their phase behaviour by structural modification of simple azobenzene molecules. A range of scattering and microscopy techniques were employed to explore the influence of structure and light-switchable nature on phase behaviour in these very interesting systems. Well done to Luke and all collaborators!