Regoutz Group

This summer we have four great UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme) students joining the group. All four are currently studying towards their BEng/MEng degrees in Materials Science and Engineering in the department. Amy Tall has been awarded an EPSRC Vacation Bursary, and Xiangqi Hu has been awarded an Imperial College UROP Bursary. Zhuocheng Xu’s project will be supported by Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Xiangqi Hu and Qiaochu Luo will be joining our CHIRP project team working on copper oxide nanostructure for glucose sensing, Amy Tall will be working on sol-gel synthesis for metal oxide thin films, and Zhuocheng Xu will be looking at radiation damage in catalyst systems.

If you want to know more about these great young scientist check out the group website.

Our 2018 UROP students: Qiaochu Luo, Zhuocheng Xu, Xiangqi Hu, and Amy Tall (from left to right). 

The final version of the PdIn intermetallic nanoparticles for CO₂ to methanol hydrogenation paper is out in Applied Catalysis B: Environmental! Besides following changes in the sample characteristics using core level photoemission and correlating these with other characterisation methods, it also contains valence band spectra studying the change in electronic structure upon variation of the mixture of Pd and In in these intermetallic nanoparticles. The strong quenching of the density of states and change in structure of the valence states can be used to identify the sample chemistry in detail and can be directly linked to the behaviour of the catalysts.

This paper follows our previous work on Pd₂Ga-based catalysts which we published earlier this year in ACS Catalysis.

PS: The paper is open access so what are you waiting for? Go read it now 🙂

A few weeks back I found a great website by Boise State University which has LEGO instructions for a range of characterisation instruments. So naturally I had to try them out. I used Toy Pro to get all the necessary pieces and built the SEM and the XRD. I made a few custom adjustment particularly for the screens and control panels. I love the fact that the door opens on the XRD. Sadly, for now there aren’t any instructions for XPS – maybe I need to look into designing my own.

There might be a couple of safety issues in these labs (particularly the bunny next to the Erlenmeyer on the floor) but other than that I love the kits!

Our group has a fully funded 3-year PhD studentship in “High-pressure Photoelectron Spectroscopy of Solar Water Splitting Materials” available to start in October 2015. It’s open to all UK/EU students who meet the EPSRC residency criteria.

The full advert can be found on the group website http://payneresearch.org. For any further information please contact Dr David Payne (d.payne – at – imperial.ac.uk).

Since moving to Imperial in January I’ve gotten involved in a project on pyrochlores. To be more specific the “species” of interest is Pb₂Ir₂O₆O’. Besides the fact that I seem to end up working with toxic chemicals wherever I go this is actually a structure of beauty. During my initial literature search I decided to play with the ONE reference structure on the ICSD and out came the picture below. It’s a view of the [111] face of said pyrochlore with the atom colours changed. I thought this is too pretty not to share. Now we’ll see how well the synthesis goes. Watch this space!

With the new year comes a new job. Today is day 2 at my new academic home, the Department of Materials at Imperial College London. As I described it earlier today: I have an ID card and a lab coat, and my email account works. All sorted.

To all the exciting times to come!

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C has already got our “just accepted” paper on CeVO4 on his website. Final version will be published after editing etc, but you can already check it out here.

The guys at the Department of Chemistry at the University of California Irvine have really done themselves proud with this Parody of a Disney song. A Disney twist on an ode to Chemistry!