James Finn, University of Loughborough, Travel Award to attend ISE in Croatia

The ISE 36th Topical Meeting in Sibenik Croatia was my first international conference and the first where I delivered and oral presentation of my work. It was an inspirational and informative experience, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend this event. The event kicked off the event with an evening social where I was immediately introduced to a wonderfully diverse group of academics. With good food and good conversations, I learnt about others research, interests and career paths. I delivered my talk on the first day and despite the nerves it went surprisingly well. Following the presentation several other attendees approach me for discussion and collaboration, especially with a view to look at the integration of my work, supercapacitive swing adsorption of CO2, with other electrochemical technologies. I was then able to try and absorb as much as possible from the world experts present. The broad scope of the conference made it really felt like a melting pot of ideas all geared towards electrochemical solutions to addressing climate and environmental concerns. Diverse expertise from material modification with magnets to pilot scale fuel cells has added a vast number of interesting people to my network, setting the foundation for international collaborations around shared goals. This aspect of the conference was by far the most valuable, expanding the network from almost essentially UK based, to making strong links with researchers from the Americas and Europe to China and Tiwan. My horizons feel broader and the possibilities of my work and future feel somewhat limitless.

Cindy Tseng from Imperial College attends 245th Electrochemical Society Conference in the USA with help from a SCN Travel Award

I attended the 245th Electrochemical Society Conference, which was held at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco. At the conference, I presented my research on the effects of mixed titanium-iridium oxides on the oxygen evolution reaction, highlighting how this can help reduce iridium loading in industrial electrolyzers and lower the cost of hydrogen production. In addition to delivering an oral presentation, I also got the change to chair my own session, which was a great opportunity to meet other people doing research very relevant to my field. I connected with over a dozen scientists and spoke with a few groups interested in collaborating on measuring the stability of my samples. I also attended symposium A01: New Approaches and Advances in Electrochemical Energy Systems, held in memory of Sri Narayan. Professor Narayan was my Electrochemistry instructor during my PhD at the University of Southern California, and it was an honor to attend the symposium and celebrate his influential work on fuel cells. The room was filled with his students, many of whom were my former colleagues and friends, and it was wonderful to catch up. Thanks to this travel grant, I was able to make this trip, leading to significant scientific insights and cherished personal memories for which I am deeply grateful.

SCN Outreach Funding: The Solar Suitcase

With the help of the Solar Chemicals Network funding 'Outreach Award', The Solar Suitcase led by Dr Sprick has visited several schools in Glasgow and the Central Belt in Scotland teaching students about climate change and how we can produce essential fuels and chemicals using sunlight-driven processes. The suitcase contains a mixture of hands-on and demonstration activities as well as the Solar Card Game developed specifically for this, which shows how sunlight-driven processes can be used to replace fossil fuels.