Charl also took the opportunity to give a talk at the University of Shanghai Science and Technology on Wednesday the 9th of May, invited by Dr. Yaozu Liao. Yaozu spent two years in prof Ric Kaner’s labs at UCLA (where Charl recently visited).
Zhixiang and Charl enjoyed a very interesting visit and scientific discussions at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, hosted by prof Yongfeng Zhou. Here a photo with Prof Xinyuan Zhu, Zhixiang, Academician Prof Yan, Charl and Yongfeng, after scientific presentations from Zhixiang and Charl, and just before a delicious lunch!
Zhixiang and Charl enjoyed a relaxing day on Sunday, walking along the famous West Lake in Hangzhou and enjoyed some local fish for lunch. After lunch and a boat trip across the lake, they headed up to Longjin village, famous for it’s excellent tea! We sampled some of the local produce and Zhixiang bargained with the owner of the tea shop about the price of various teas. Finally, after a deal was struck, the lady took us out into the woods and up the hills to their farm! Fascinating stuff! On Monday both Zhixiang and Charl give a lecture at the Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhijiang University in Hangzhou (host: Prof Gao Chao) before heading off to Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Charl is currently on a short lecture tour in China, with his first stop at the Harbin Institute of Technology (host – prof. Shaoqin Liu). He also had the chance to enjoy the interesting multi-cultural city of Harbin (with lots of influence from Russia), as well as some rather hungry looking Siberian tigers!
Charl visited the US last week to briefly meet up with UoB undergraduate students on the year-in-industry degree programme. He used this opportunity to stop in Los Angeles and visit Ric Kaner’s group at UCLA (and gave a talk in Ric’s research group meeting), before moving on to DuPont’s central research site in Wilmington (close to Philadelphia) and Argonne National Laboratory (close to Chicago)! The photo was taken in a small town called Newcastle, close to Wilmington.
Chinwe has created microstructures that resemble golf balls from a tetra(aniline)-based material.
Last Wednesday, Bristol Chemistry held the first in a series of Materials Chemistry symposiums. The afternoon featured two external speakers (Sharon Cooper, Durham and Andrew Houlton, Newcastle) and five post-graduate researchers from the School of Chemistry including Tom. The talks were all of an extremely high standard and stimulated a lot of scientific discussion!
Jiangtao and Charl in Chengdu!
Charl also had the pleasure to meet Jiangtao, who spent a year in Bristol, during the CCS meeting. They went for a traditional Sichuan-style hot pot meal – very hot indeed!
Chengdu Hotpot - Sichuan style!
Charl attended the Chinese Chemical Society’s meeting in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China from the 13-16th of April. He had the chance to visit the local panda park close to Chengdu with colleagues. Here he is with Dr. Jose Oliviera, the Editor-in-Chief for the journal “Small”, in front of a very lazy panda!
Jose, lazy panda and Charl
Another week is almost over, however, this has been a special one for our group for many reasons: final year project student presentations, Charl starts a visiting professorship in China and summertime has just started in Bristol. Thus, ISA group had a great celebration of flavours and smells from almost all around the world on Thursday night at town.
As part of the degree programmes offered by the School of Chemistry, undergraduate students have to complete a research project in their final year, which includes writing a thesis and an oral presentation. This year, our young lab mates were involved in subjects such as covalent organic frameworks (COFs) based on tetraniline motifs (with possible applications in gas storage or sensing), functionalization of perylenes with electroactive units to achieve new hierarchical architectures for nanostructured materials and the synthesis of surfactant-like molecules with high osseointegration capabilities for their use in hip implants.
Charl holds a prestigious visiting professorship from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, hosted by Prof. Zhixiang Wei at the National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, China. For two months, shifu Faul will be working on the field of organic functional nanomaterials and devices and trying to learn the secrets of ancient Chinese cuisine.
On the subject of food, the group visited a buffet restaurant as part of the celebrations for these special events on Thursday night. From my point of view, this place has an interesting concept, cool to hang out with a group of friends but not amazing food. This buffet market has five kiosks, which offer European, Tex-Mex, Asian and Indian food. There is also a huge variety of salads and desserts.
Unfortunately, my lexicon is not good enough to describe summertime in the City of Bristol, but as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words!
Faul Research Group 