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/ Events

Energy materials to combat climate change

08 - 09 June 2009 09:00 - 17:00

Organised by Professor Richard Catlow FRS, Professor Peter Bruce FRS and Professor Peter Edwards FRS

New technologies for energy conversion and storage are essential to address climate change. Such technologies require a fundamental advance in the science of energy materials. The discussion will bring together world-renowned experts in the field of fuel cells, hydrogen storage, batteries, supercapacitors, solar energy and nuclear power. They will review the state of knowledge, establish the key scientific challenges, tension these against each other and set the priorities and agenda for research in materials for energy technologies in the coming decade.

The proceedings of this meeting have now been published in a dedicated issue of Philosophical Transactions A.

The audio recordings of the meeting are available below.

Organisers

  • Sir Richard Catlow FRS, Cardiff University and University College London, UK

    Richard Catlow is developing and applying computer models to solid state and materials chemistry: areas of chemistry that investigate the synthesis, structure and properties of materials in the solid phase. By combining his powerful computational methods with experiments, Richard has made considerable contributions to areas as diverse as catalysis and mineralogy. His approach has also advanced our understanding of how defects (missing or extra atoms) in the structure of solids can result in non-stoichiometric compounds. Such compounds have special electrical or chemical properties since their contributing elements are present in slightly different proportions to those predicted by chemical formula. Richard’s work has offered insight into mechanisms of industrial catalysts, especially involving microporous materials and metal oxides. In structural chemistry and mineralogy. Simulation methods are now routinely used to predict the structures of complex solids and silicates, respectively, thanks to Richard’s demonstrations of their power. Richard was Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society from 2016 until 2021. He has for many years been involved in the exploitation of High Performance Computing in Modelling Materials.

  • Professor Peter Bruce FRS

    Peter Bruce is Wolfson Professor of Materials at the University of Oxford. His research interests embrace materials chemistry and electrochemistry, with a particular emphasis on energy storage. Recent efforts have focused on the synthesis and understanding of new cathode materials for lithium and sodium ion batteries, understanding processes in all solid-state batteries and the challenges of the lithium-air battery. His pioneering work has provided many advances.

    Peter has received numerous awards, including the Tilden Prize of the RSC, the Carl Wagner Award of the ECS, the Liversidge Award of the RSC and the Hughes Medal of the RS. He has also been recognised as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics each year since 2015.

    Peter is a founder and Chief Scientist of the Faraday Institution, the UK centre for research on electrochemical energy storage. Peter took up the position of Physical Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society in 2018.

  • Professor Peter Edwards FRS, University of Oxford, UK

    Peter P Edwards is Professor and Head of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford.  His research interests include metal-insulator transitions, high temperature superconductivity, metals in non-aqueous solvents, small metallic particles and energy materials, with a particular emphasis on new-generation, high-performance materials for hydrogen production and storage, CO2 activation and utilisation, inorganic semiconductor thin films for solar energy applications and advanced catalytic materials. 

    Following BSc and PhD degrees at Salford University, Edwards spent periods at Cornell (Fulbright Scholar and National Science Foundation Fellow)), Cambridge (Lecturer and Director of Studies in Chemistry, Jesus College), Birmingham (Professor of Chemistry, and of Materials), before assuming his present position at Oxford in 2003. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996 and to the German Academy of Sciences in 2009.

    He has been the recipient of the Corday-Morgan, Tilden and Liversidge Medals of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society.  In 2012 he is to present The Bakerian Prize Lecture of the Royal Society; the Society’s premier lecture in the physical sciences.

    Selection of Publications:

    • Turning Points in Solid-State, Materials and Surface Science.  A Book in Celebration of the Life and work of Sir John Meurig Thomas, KDM Harris, PP Edwards, eds, Royal Society of Chemistry, London (2007)
    • Turning carbon dioxide into fuel, Z Jiang, T Xiao, VL Kuznetsov, PP Edwards, Phil Trans R Soc A, 368, 3343-3364 (2010)
    • ' ... a metal conducts and a non-metal doesn't', PP Edwards, MTJ Lodge,  F Hensel, et al, Phil Trans R Soc A, 368, 1914, 941-965, (2010)
    • Functional Materials for Sustainable Energy Technologies: Four Case Studies, VL Kuznetsov, PP Edwards, ChemSusChem, 3, 1, 44-58 (2010)
    • A Molecular Perspective on Lithium-Ammonia Solutions, E Zurek, PP Edwards, R Hoffmann,  Angewandte Chemie-International Edition, 48, 44, 8198-8232 (2009)
    • Photo-catalytic conversion of oxygenated hydrocarbons to hydrogen over heteroatom-doped TiO2 catalysts, NJ Luo, Z Jiang, HH Shi, FH Cao, T Xiao, PP Edwards, Int Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 34, 1, 125-129 (2009)  
    • Water/oil microemulsion for the preparation of robust La-hexaaluminates for methane catalytic combustion, Z Jiang, Su Hao, T Xiao, PP Edwards, Chem, Comm, 22, 3225-3227 (2009)
    • Metallic Oxygen, PP Edwards and F Hensel, ChemPhysChem., 3, 53-56 (2002)
    • What, Why and When is a Metal?, PP Edwards in The New Chemistry, ed N Hall, Cambridge University Press, 85-114 (2000)
    • Synthesis and Superconducting Properties of the Strontium Copper Oxyfluoride Sr2CuO2F2+, M Al-Mamouri, PP Edwards, C Greaves and M Slaski, Nature, 369, 382-384 (1994)