There are, as always, people leaving the group (Feli taking up a new job in Germany – congrats!), and new people joining! Yaozu just joined the group from China as Marie Curie fellow – welcome! More to follow soon!
A great new blog has been launched by our Drs Natalie Fey and Jenny Slaughter. The idea is that “a picture can be worth a thousand words”. In this project they have combined interesting and striking photographs of familiar objects with representations of some of the molecules they contain, which contribute to their properties and uses.
It already contains some very interesting and exciting entries on plants, so please go ahead and take a look!
Tom’s paper, a collaborative efforts between the Briscoe and Faul research groups, appeared online at Soft Matter today!
The study, entitled “Oligo(aniline) nanofilms: from molecular architecture to microstructure” demonstrates that through a simple processing route the morphology of electroactive oligomer films can be tailored by molecular design. These findings from detailed GIXS studies are important to future applications where thin film structure is a crucial consideration for device function and performance. Congrats to Tom and all other colleagues involved!
Apart from being famous for its chemistry, Bristol is also famous for Wallace and Gromit, two characters created by Aardman Animations! For a short period you will be able to find 80 Gromit’s unleashed and dotted around Bristol and surrounds, all in support of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, the fantastic Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity. With the sun shining in Bristol (!), Carl and Zhonghua have been out hunting down Gromit statues … here a few examples!
A detailed structural study by Tom of oligo(aniline) thin films using grazing incidence X-ray scattering has been accepted for publication in Soft Matter. This was a joint effort between the Faul and Briscoe research groups and other collaborators. More details to follow!
Charl spent the morning at St Katherine’s, a local school close to Bristol, talking about chemistry, science and careers in science. It was a great opportunity to interact with and talk to a range of students (from Year 8 through to Year 12)!
Tom contributed to a paper from the Briscoe group investigating the formation and structure of surfactant bilayers at the mica-water interface. This detailed study was recently accepted for publication in Soft Matter!
Congrats to Tom, Wuge and other contributors!
Charl is on a short trip to the US, visiting DuPont as part of the SoC’s Year in Industry undergrad programme, as well as the Institute of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago to give a seminar.
Both Tom and Charl were out and about today, giving talks. Tom spoke at the Xmas beamline user meeting in Liverpool on his TANI-surfactant structure investigations, while Charl gave a research seminar at the School of Chemistry in Leeds.
Charl ran the Bristol 10K race on Sunday, the 5th of May, to help raise money for local charity BISC (or Bristol International Student Centre). He ran with a team of 9 other volunteers and international students, and was very pleased to have finished the race in just over 55 minutes.
Here Charl is celebrating with other BISC runners after the race!
Faul Research Group 