Category Archives: FRG group

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!

Excellent start to 2020!

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The Faul Research Group has had an excellent start to 2020 – Neha joined the group as a long-term visitor from VISCTEC, Thailand (from the group of Prof Valerio D’Elia), and Charl (after a great break in South Africa) is visiting IIT Kharagpur again as part of his Indian-government funded SPARC programme.

As part of the SPARC project, project partners Professors Patra and Mishra are the convenors and organisers of the “Functional Smart & Supramolecular Materials 2020” workshop, which will take place later this week (29 & 30 January) in Kharagpur. This is bound to be an outstanding event, looking at the list of speakers!

 

Pan’s paper accepted … and now online

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A paper by Pan (with collaborators from the Schroeder Group at UCL and Chemical Engineering in Bath) was just accepted for publication in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. The study, on the use of new conjugated microporous polymers for gas and vapour sorption and detection, provides insight into the use of CMPs for applications very relevant to the issues of indoor air quality and sensing.

The paper has now appeared as just accepted! Congratulations to all involved!

SPARC programme with the IIT Kharagpur

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Charl is currently visiting the Department of Chemistry,  IIT Kharagpur, as part of the active SPARC project (funded by the Indian Government) with Sanjib Patra and Sabyashachi Mishra and their groups.

This is Charl’s first visit to India, and has been a great opportunity to discuss science with many colleagues, give lectures, and enjoy the local food and culture!

Here Charl is enjoying a home-cooked meal at Sanjib’s house, with Sanjib, Ganesh (who was a post-doc in the Aggarwal group in Bristol!), and Sabyashachi.

Plenary in Shanghai!

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Charl gave a plenary lecture at Donghua University’s 9th International Conference on Advance Fibers and Polymer Materials.

The conference, organised by the State Key Laboratory for Modification of Fibers and Polymer Materials, included a range of contributions from the USA, China, UK, Germany, Japan and Korea (amongst others!).

Charl also had to the opportunity to catch up with Yaozu, Wei (former FRG members now at Donghua), as well as collaborators Prof Hiroshi Kitagawa (Kyoto, Japan), and Dr Samuel Chigome (BITRI, Botswana).

New group members!

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After a busy week of settling in, we have finally managed to get (most) of the group together for a new mega-group photo!

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Welcome to all new members – both graduate and undergraduate (EJ, Tom, Callum, and Angus (not on the photo!)) students, including those working with Sebastien (Stella and James)!

Here Charl with all graduate students who started since May – Basiram, Safa, Xue, Dauren and Sam, with Prof Hugh Brady (Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Bristol – not a new PhD student), at a recent PGR welcome event!

For the Africa we want!

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Charl was privileged to be invited to attend the Royal Society and African Academy of Sciences‘ Connecting Minds Africa 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya.It was a great opportunity to meet a large number of bright and ambitious young academics from all over Africa, including Future Leader-African Independent Researcher (FLAIR) Fellows.

Charl also had the chance to meet his mentee, FLAIR Fellow and up-and-coming academic Professor Balla Diop Ngom from Dakar, Senegal!

Busy week in the FRG – Porous Materials Mini Symposium

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It was a busy week in the Faul Research Group – we hosted a mini symposium with a large number of research groups based in the South West (Bath, Bristol, Cardiff) and active in the broad area of porous materials on Wednesday.

Sebastien did a great job in organising the symposium – thank you! We also received support from the Cabot Institute! The next meeting already planned for early next year!