The FRG had the pleasure of hosting Prof. Kazuo Akagi from Kyoto University today. After a beautiful talk about helical poly(acetylene)s, and polymerisations in anisotropic media, the whole group interacted with Prof. Akagi over posters, coffee and pastries!
Kazu then had the chance to catch up with his former PhD supervisor!
We have just heard that Alex’s manuscript into the formation of conductive self-assembled nanowires based on TANI-surfactants has been accepted for publication in JACS! This study was a multi-researcher international collaborative effort, with contributions from Aalto University, Tsinghua University and the BCFN in Bristol!
More details to follow … but in the meantime congratulations to all who contributed!
The FRG has increased dramatically in size with the start of the new academic year, with new PhD, MSc, MSci project students and visitors! Here a photo taken at group meeting earlier today, with Esther, Maha and James not on the photo!
Welcome to all the new group members!
As a final reminder of the very successful BCFN trip to China, here a group photo of our very successful 1st Jilin-Bristol Joint Symposium, held in Changchun! We look forward to hosting our colleagues from China in Bristol in the near future!
Charl is currently in Japan, visiting Prof Kazuo Akagi (in Kyoto, and former PhD supervisor of Kazu in the FRG) to discuss future Bristol-Kyoto interactions. The visit so far has been very productive, including meeting Dr Reiko Oda (from Bordeaux), who gave a fascinating talk on chirality in amphiphilic systems.
The day of interactions was celebrated … with Japanese green-tea-containing beer, whilst learning about the famous Kyoto Gion Festival.
Charl will still be visiting Prof Fumio Sanda (Kansai University) and Prof Tsuyoshi Kawai (Nara Institute of Science and Technology) before returning the Bristol at the end of the week.
The inspiration of Dicker’s research project, sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust, is the sun-tracking movements of the Cornish Mallow.
Dicker, a joint PhD student with Prof Paul Weaver and colleagues from ACCIS, recently posted this Youtube time-lapse video of his prized Cornish Mallow’s laboratory activity!
Esther and Ben are at the ESRF in Grenoble, doing some scattering experiments with former FRG member Dr Tom Dane (from beam line ID13), and long-standing collaborator and friend Dr Patrice Rannou.
Here an (almost) action shot at the beam line taken by Ben, with Tom, Esther, Patrice and Meera (postdoc in Patrice’s group).
Yaozu’s paper in Macromolecules on novel porous materials based on perylene diimides and triazines have appeared online! This exciting work (in collaboration with Jens Weber) discusses the preparation of porous and related carbon materials, and their excellent selectivity and capability for CO2 uptake.
Please read more here!
This £210,000 collaborative grant has been awarded to a research team from engineering (aerospace and engineering mathematics) and chemistry. Efforts in the lab are led by Dicker, and his work with biomimetic devices that re-orientate in response to light. See the University of Bristol’s news article here
The work is inspired by sun-tracking plants and uses pH-sensitive hydrogels in combination with photoacids to achieve actuation. These devices could be used to maximise the efficiency of photovoltaic panels by tracking the sun throughout the day.
Long-standing collaborators, Prof Olli Ikkala and Dr Nikolay Houbenov from the Molecular Materials Group at Aalto University (Helsinki, Finland), visited the FRG on Thursday and Friday. In order to welcome them, and all the new arrivals in the Faul and Hall groups, we went to the White Bear!
Olli ended his visit on Friday afternoon with a stimulating presentation in the Centre for NSQI.
Faul Research Group 