Category Archives: General interest

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.

Stone Symposium!

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The Inorganic and Materials Chemistry Section at the School of Chemistry was privileged to host the 27th Stone Symposium. It was a fantastic opportunity to listen to colleagues at all stages of their careers from Bristol (Beatrice Collins and Natalie Fey), Amsterdam (Joost Reek) … and Groningen!

It was great to have the chance to have Nobel Laureate Prof Ben Feringa as the 2019 Stone Lecture! Fantastic lectures and fantastic science!

Lecture tour in Taiwan

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Charl was invited by Prof Chien-Lung Wang (from the Department of Applied Chemistry, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan) to visit Taiwan and give a short series of lectures at three top universities in Taiwan.

This invitation was a great opportunity to meet colleagues and give a series of lectures at:

  • National Chiao Tung University (host – Prof. Chien-Lung Wang, Department of Applied Chemistry)

    • National Taiwan University (host – Prof. Jye-Shane Yang, Department of Chemistry)
  • National Tsing Hua University (host – Prof. Hsin-Lung Chen, Deptartment of Chemical Engineering)

Great opportunity to showcase some of the latest research from the Faul Research Group – thank you!

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!

GroupOct2019

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!

Paper with Donghua University, Shanghai!

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A new study, where Charl contributed to on-going collaborative activities with former postdoc (and now professor at Donghua) Yaozu Liao, was published in Chemical Engineering Journal. This study explored modified tetraphenylmethane (TPM)-based POPs i.e. mPTPMs (synthesized via Buchwald-Hartwig cross-coupling of a tetrakis(4-bromophenyl) methane core and selected aryl diamine linkers, followed by a crosslinking alkylation strategy using diiodomethane as a crosslinker).

ChemEngJ.jpg

This new strategy offers mPTPMs with high surface areas, uniform ultramicropores where porous properties are readily controlled by the substitutions of linkers and the crosslinker. More details on the paper entitled “A crosslinking alkylation strategy to construct nitrogen-enriched tetraphenylmethane-based porous organic polymers as efficient carbon dioxide and iodine adsorbents” to follow soon!

Well done to all involved!

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!