April 2023
The group (almost) all attended ISSC at Manchester Metropolitan University. Kacper gave a talk on his research into ORR electrocatalysts
April 2023
We welcome Harry Taylor to our group as a new PhD student. Harry is joining us as part of the NowNano CDT and will be studying 2-D oxides as electrocatalysts.
February 2023
We welcome Norton West as a new postdoc. He’s joined us all the way from Australia and will be developing methods to study electrocatalysts operando in XPS
January 2023
We welcome a new Postdoc – Kerry Hazeldine! Kerry joins us from Aberystwyth university and will be studying high entropy sulphide electrocatalysts using (NAP)-XPS
September 2022
We welcome a new PhD student – Eleanor Ender! Eleanor will be working on correlative characterisation of electrocatalysts for alkaline HER
September 2022
Khadisha gave an oral presentation at ECOSS35 in Luxembourg and for once didn’t win any kind of award… probably good for her to not win every now and again…
July 2022
Khadisha presents a poster and 3 minute talk at the UK Surface Analysis Forum Summer Meeting, held at the Henry Royce Institute Hub in Manchester…. and wins best poster!
June 2022
2 year PDRA position available to work on operando electrocatalyst characterisation for green hydrogen (see “Positions Available”)
March 2022
Khadisha publishes her second paper on graphene nanobubbles: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/cp/d1cp05902e
January 2022
Funded PhD position awarded (see “Positions Available”) to work on characterisation of catalysts for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction.
November 2021
Fred speaks at the annual BP-ICAM conference. He presented his results in following the reduction of Fischer Tropsch catalysts in-situ using NAP-XPS.
September 2021
Zoë’s project comes to an end and she starts a new job working in surface analysis for Pilkington’s glass. Thanks to Zoë for all her hard work – “Triton” will live on!
September 2021
Three conference presentations in one day. Zoë and Alex travel to Cambridge for a Faraday Insitutition meeting (first in-person conference for any of us post-corona!) Whilst there, Zoë delivers an in-person talk on her project AND a virtual talk at the EuroMat conference. Alex tags along and also delivers a virtual EuroMat talk on the droplet project. It was intense.
August 2021
Conor’s project comes to and end and we bid him farewell with much sorrow – his cheery optimism will be much missed. He returns back to his native Ireland and back to his first love – semiconductor devices, this time in industry.
January 2021
Conor published an invited submission in Journal of Physics D, entitled “A Combined Laboratory & Synchrotron In-Situ Photoemission Study of the Rutile TiO2 (110) / Water Interface”. Well done Conor!
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/abddfb.
September 2020
Zoë and Alex helped create and deliver a “Faraday Tech Series” on XPS over four days in September, together with our collaborators from the Weatherup group in Oxford.
September 2020
Alex published a paper in Journal of Catalysis together with Xiaolei Fan’s group from CEAS, entitled: “PtNi bimetallic structure supported on UiO-67 metal-organic framework (MOF) during CO oxidation” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002195172030381X
August 2020
Well done to Khadisha for winning the Best Talk at the Department of Chemistry PGR Conference 2020. I hope you put the £50 Amazon voucher to good use!
August 2020
We’re back! The NAP-XPS has been given clearance to re-open. Only two of us at a time and lots of new rules due to COVID, but it’s a start…
March 2020
In more positive news – Khadisha published her first paper as first author!
“Intercalation, decomposition, entrapment – a new route to graphene nanobubbles” – accepted into PCCP.
DOI: 10.1039/D0CP00592D
Very well done Khadisha!
March 2020
Shutdown! UoM is closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the group worked hard to mothball the NAP-XPS with very little notice.
March 2020
Alex is invited to speak at the “Advanced Characterization of Energy Materials Symposium” in Sheffield. He took credit for presented a summary of Conor and Zoë’s research.
January 2020
We welcome our third PhD student, Kacper Polus! Kacper is going to working on nitrogen-doped graphene electrocatalysts.
December 2019
Conor receives an “Experimental Design Award” from the STFC, which is a £6000 award to develop new methodologies for the operando characterisation of electrochemical interfaces.
Well done Conor!
November 2019
Alex is invited to speak at the University of Central Lancashire in their physics seminar series. He gave an overview of his work in electrocatalysis from his postdoc days to present.
October 2019
The group welcomes a new postdoc, Zoë Henderson. Zoë is going to be working on Faraday Institution project, developing new methodologies to investigate battery interfaces in-situ using Hard X-Ray Photoemission Spectroscopy (HAXPES)
September 2019
The group welcomes a new PhD student, Fred Tinkamanyire. Fred is a CASE award student with BP – looking at in-situ characterisation of Fischer-Tropsch catalysts.
September 2019
Conor and Khadisha attended the e-MRS fall meeting in Warsaw and both gave presentations on their research.
August 2019
Alex was invited to give a presentation at the ACS Fall Meeting in San Diego
July 2019
As part of a consortium of researchers from Manchester and Oxford, Alex was awarded a research grant from the Faraday Institution, with the rather dramatic title of “What Lies Beneath? Probing Buried Interfaces in Working Batteries“. This project will develop new ways of looking at battery interfaces during cycling and will involve a postdoc down in Oxford and one in Manchester.
July 2019
Alex was invited to speak at “Operando and In-Situ Methods for Energy Materials Workshop” at the Diamond Light Source
July 2019
Conor and Khadisha presented a talk and a poster respectively at Electrochemistry North West 2019 at MMU.
Despite the unnecessarily phallic drawing of an electron analyser – Conor won the best talk and netted a cool £50. Here he is holding someone’s buisness card in lieu of a giant novelty cheque. Well done Conor!
March 2019
Alex published a paper together with Jeppe Lauritsen and his group in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
“Structure and Stability of Au-Supported Layered Cobalt Oxide Nanoislands in Ambient Conditions”
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b00771
February 2019
Funds
Khadisha was accepted for the Margaret Elizabeth Lee Fellowship
– up to £500 funding to ‘undertake projects, visit institutions of higher education, or attend educational conferences outside of the United Kingdom’
December 2018
Alex attended an Anglo-Indian workshop on electrochemical energy storage and conversion, held in Bangalore
Electrochemical Routes 2018
September 2018
Alex was co-organiser of a one-day meeting in Manchester:
In-Situ Characterisation of Electrochemical Interfaces
Sponsored by:
The IOP Thin Films and Surfaces Group, SPECS/Scanwel, University of Manchester@Harwell and The Sir Henry Royce Institute.
August 2018
Alex and Khadisha went to the
34th Annual European Conference on Surface Science in Aarhus, Denmark
Alex’s contributed Talk:
“In-situ studies of the electrode/electrolyte interface using XPS”
Abstract
Khadisha’s Contributed Talk:
“Reaction of NH3 annealed graphene studied by near ambient pressure XPS”
Abstract
Funds
Khadisha was awarded the IOP Research Student Conference Fund as contribution towards the cost of attending ECOSS 34
– £300 by the Thin Films and Surface Group
Walton research group, University of Manchester 