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Welcome! We are interested in applying principles from the traditional field of Biological Inorganic Chemistry to Renewable Energy research. We design artificial photosynthetic systems to produce a so-called solar fuel - a sustainable fuel derived from solar energy and an effectively inexhaustible raw material. A major goal is to mimic photobiological energy generation by hybridizing enzymes and biomimetic synthetic compounds with nanostructured materials to give technologically relevant hybrid systems. To achieve this aim, a solar light-harvesting component is coupled to a suitable redox catalyst to drive the energetically uphill redox transformations. A current focus lies on the photocatalytic production of the high specific energy carrier hydrogen from water and we have started to explore novel routes of converting the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into valuable carbon feedstocks. We pay particular attention to solar syngas generation, which would allow to access a sustainable carbon-based economy. Our laboratory and department house state-of-the-art facilities for our work, which covers a wide range of disciplines - from anaerobic Synthetic to Biological Chemistry, with an emphasis somewhere at the Interface of Inorganic Chemistry, Enzymology, Electro-, Photochemistry, and Materials Chemistry. We are part of three research interest groups in the department of Chemistry (Materials, Synthesis, Chemical Biology) and collaborate with other departments at Cambridge and universities in the UK, EU and USA. The group also houses the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable SynGas Chemistry. What's
new?
April 2012. Start and Inauguration of Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable Syngas Chemistry. The programme can be found here. Manuela Gross arrives from Vienna and joins the group as the first Doppler PhD student. Doppler laboratory is featured the news: here (in English) and here (pdf, published in 'derStandard'; in German). March 2012. Ahu Gumrah Parry awarded with a postdoctoral Schlumberger-Faculty for the Future fellowship. She will join us from the Materials department at Cambridge in the summer. February 2012. Benjamin Martindale awarded with an Oppenheimer PhD studentship. He will join us from Oxford in October. January 2012. The group receives new lab space to house the analytical and synthetic facilities of the Christian Doppler laboratory. December 2011. Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable Syngas Chemistry approved. More information will be available soon - here. November 2011. Christina Chang awarded Marshall scholarship (she will join us from Princeton in October 2013). Chia-Yu awarded postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Council Taiwan (he will stay in our group). Erwin receives Talents Sponsorship Award in category 'Science' from federal state of Upper Austria. October 2011. We welcome our incoming PhD students Dirk, Nick, Yi-Hsuan, Part III student Eugene Chan and Erasmus student Janina Willkomm from Hanover, Germany. September 2011. Tsubasa Sakai starts his work as Suntory Life Science postdoctoral fellow. Carlo di Giovanni arrives for his three months visit from ICIQ, Taragona, Spain (group of Antoni Llobet). Fezile and Erwin at Faraday Discussions meeting 155 on Artificial Photosynthesis in Edinburgh, UK. August 2011. Yi-Hsuan Lai awarded PhD scholarships from Cambridge Trust and Ministry of Education, Taiwan. Chia-Yu Lin arrives as postdoctoral visitor from NTU, Taiwan. July 2011: Fezile publishes paper in Artificial Photosynthesis issue of Faraday Discussions. Erwin co-organizes (with M. Dinca, MIT) RSC Workshop on Addressing Challenges in Solar Energy Utilization towards Water Splitting at MIT. June 2011: Nicholas Paul awarded PhD studentship from the newly established Winton fund for the Physics of Sustainability (he will join us in October 2011). May 2011: Dirk Mersch joins the group for his nanoDTC midi-project (he will also stay for his PhD) and Christopher Windle starts his three months visit from the University of York (group of Robin Perutz). Erwin gives lecture at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. April 2011: The group receives new lab space: we start to set up a laboratory for BioElectrochemistry. March 2011: Erwin elected as a fellow of St. John's College. Erwin gives Austrian Chemical Society lecture in Innsbruck, Austria and a talk on solar fuels at BASF in Ludwigshafen, Germany. February 2011: Review on "solar H2 evolution with hydrogenases" featured on the cover in the special issue on hydrogenases of the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. January 2011: Our paper on "photocatalytic H2 evolution with a Molecular Co catalyst on TiO2" published as Hot Article in Chemical Communications. December 2010: PhD studentship and Postdoctoral Research Assistant position available. Erwin gives talk at Cambridge Philosophical Society meeting "Making Light Work" in Cambridge, UK. November 2010: Laboratory for Synthesis and Analytical measurements set up and experiments started in our new home. Erwin gives lecture at the University of Nottingham, UK. October 2010: The Reisner lab arrives in Cambridge. We welcome our graduate student Claire Wombwell and Part III students Andrew Underwood and Jon Goodwin. previous news ___________________ © webmaster, 2009-2012. |
 Group 2011/12 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, October 2011)  Group 2010/11 (Downing College, Cambridge, November 2010) __________
Selected Recent and Upcoming Lectures with group participation (*with ER). 1.-2. November 2012:* Lecture, ‘Solar Fuels’ symposium (NRSC-Catalysis program ‘BioSolar Cells’), Eindhoven, The Netherlands. 12.-16. September 2012: 11th European Biological Inorganic Chemistry Conference (EuroBIC), Granada, Spain. 2.-7. September 2012:* Lecture, 25th International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry, Lisbon, Portugal. 13.-18. May 2012: Gordon Conference on Renewable Energy: Solar Fuels, Lucca, Italy. 2. May 2012:* Department lecture, Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, UK. 30. March 2012:* Seminar, CCI Powering the Planet Consortium, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA. 25.-29. March 2012:* ACS National Meeting, Sustainable Inorganic Chemistry symposium, San Diego, CA, USA. 23. March 2012:* Department lecture, School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin City University, Ireland. 18. January 2012:* First RSC UK Solar to Fuels Symposium, London, UK. 21. November 2011:* Department seminar, Department of Chemistry, University of Tokyo, Japan. 14.-16. November 2011:* Third Dalton Transactions International Symposium: Bioinorganic Chemistry; Osaka and Kyushu, Japan. 26.-27. September 2011:* NTU-Cambridge workshop at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 20.-21. September 2011:* Dalton Transactions Younger Researchers Symposium, University of Warwick, UK. 6.-8. September 2011:* Royal Society UK-Hong Kong Frontiers of Science meeting in Chicheley, UK. 5.-7. September 2011:* Faraday Discussions meeting 155 on Artificial Photosynthesis in Edinburgh, UK. 5.-8. July 2011:* ISACS4 on Renewable Energy in Boston, MA, USA. |