Functional bulk nanostructures for energy generation and storage

Laura Herz is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Tutorial Fellow at Brasenose College. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 2002 and was a Research Fellow at St John’s College Cambridge from 2001 to 2003 after which she moved to Oxford. Her research interests lie in the area of organic and organic/inorganic hybrid semiconductors including aspects such as self-assembly, nano-scale effects, energy-transfer and light-harvesting for solar energy conversion.

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)

Richard Friend holds the Cavendish Professorship of Physics at the University of Cambridge. His research encompasses the physics, materials science and engineering of carbon-based semiconductors, particularly polymers. His research advances have shown that these have significant applications in LEDs, solar cells and FETs. These findings have been important both for fundamental science, because they reveal new regimes and models for semiconductor behaviour, and for real applications that have been developed and exploited through a number of university spin-off companies. The first of these, Cambridge Display Technology, now part of the Sumitomo Chemical Company, developed fully printable organic LEDs for use in high resolution displays that are now commercialized and used in current OLED displays. His current research interests are directed to novel schemes – including ideas inspired by recent insights into Nature’s light harvesting – that seek to understand and improve the performance and cost of solar cells. 

"Ullrich Steiner is the Humphrey Plummer Professor of Physics of Materials. He received his undergraduate and PhD degrees in physics from Konstanz University (Germany). After research fellowships at the Weizmann Institute (Israel), the Institute Charles Sadron, Strasbourg (France), and University of Konstanz, he was the Professor of Polymer Chemistry at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) from 1999 – 2004."

Natalie Stingelin is a Senior Lecturer in Organic Functional Materials at the Department of Materials, Imperial College London, UK. Prior to this appointment she conducted research at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, the Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven, and as junior staff at Queen Mary, University of London. She obtained the degree of Engineer in Materials Science in 1997, and in 2001 completed her doctoral studies in the Polymer Technology Group, for which she was awarded the ETH Medal. She has published more than 60 papers and 7 patents and patent applications. Her current research interests encompass the broad field of organic functional materials, including organic electronics, multifunctional inorganic/organic hybrids, and smart, advanced optical systems based on organic matter. She received a 1.2 Million Euro ERC Young Investigator Award in 2011.  

Joachim Loos has received his PhD in Physics from the University of Dortmund, Germany, in 1996. Since 1997 he was appointed at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), first as Research Fellow of the Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI), later as Assistance and Associated Professor. He has initiated and established the Soft Matter Cryo-TEM Research Unit at TU/e and was its principal investigator. He is seriously involved in the research program of the DPI and other national and international institutions. Since 2010 he is appointed as Prof. in Materials and Condensed Matter Physics and Director of the Kelvin Nanocharacterisation Centre at the Glasgow University, Scotland, UK.

His research focus comprises understanding and control of organisation or assembly of polymer nanostructures, i.e. semi-conducting polymers and polymer based conductive nanocomposites. Ultimately, the organisation of the polymer systems is tuned by applying physical principles at various length scales from (sub-) nanometer (intra- and inter-molecular organisation) up to hundreds of nanometers (eg phase separation and crystal superstructures) towards advanced performance of functional devices. Moreover, he develops advanced microscopy methodologies, mainly based on TEM, SEM and SPM. 

Wilhelm Huck is Professor of Physical Organic Chemistry at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. After postdoctoral research at Harvard University, he took up a position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, where he was promoted to Director of the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis (2004) and Full Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry (2007). In 2010 he moved to Radboud University, where he completely changed research fields to focus on understanding how living cells function and where they come from. His group use microfluidics to study chemical reaction networks, to construct minimal synthetic cells, and to develop new methods to determine reaction rates in signalling networks in individual cells. His group collaborates with a range of industrial partners to develop droplet microfluidics for single cell analysis. Wilhelm Huck is a member of the Advisory Board of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, and co-founder of Sphere Fluidics (Cambridge, UK).

Adam Lee holds a BA (Natural Sciences, 1992) and PhD in Surface Science and Catalysis (1995) from the University of Cambridge. He subsequently worked as a Research Scientist for Johnson Matthey, before appointment as a Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at the University of Hull in 1997, and then Senior Lecturer at the University of York where he established a new catalysis and materials group.

Adam was awarded the 2000 CR Burch Prize by the British Vacuum Council for outstanding contributions to surface and vacuum science and the 2004 Fonda-Fasella Prize of the Italian National Synchrotron for outstanding experiments by a young international researcher. He represented the UK as a leading green chemist at the inaugural meeting between the Catalysis Society of Japan and RSC/EPSRC, and serves on the Editorial Boards of Catalysis Communications, the Open Catalysis Journal, and Catalysts. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, and will receive the 2011 McBain Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Society of Chemical Industry for contributions to colloid and interface science. Adam was appointed a Professor of Physical Chemistry at Cardiff University in 2009, and holds a five-year EPSRC Leadership Fellowship developing nanoengineered materials for clean catalytic technologies. His expertise spans heterogeneous catalysis, nanoparticles and nanoporous solids, and synchrotron science. 

Leroy (Lee) Cronin FRSE was born in the UK in 1973 was appointed to be Regius Professor of Chemistry in Glasgow in 2013 after being a professor (2009 & 2006) and reader in Glasgow since 2002. Between 2000-2002 he was a lecturer at the University of Birmingham. Alexander von Humboldt research fellow (Uni. of Bielefeld); 1997-1999: Research fellow (Uni. of Edinburgh); 1997: Ph.D. Bio-Inorganic Chemistry, Uni. of York; 1994 BSc. Chemistry, First Class, Uni. of York. Prizes include 2015 RSC Tilden Prize, 2013 BP/RSE Hutton Prize, 2012 RSC Corday Morgan, 2011, Election to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2009. His research has three main aims 1) the construction of an artificial life form / work out how inorganic chemistry transitioned to biology / searching for new life forms; 2) the digitization of chemistry; and 3) the use of artificial intelligence in chemistry including the construction of ‘wet’ chemical computers.

Alexei Kornyshev received his Master’s degree from Moscow Physical Engineering Institute in theoretical nuclear physics. After defending his PhD in Physical and Mathematical Sciences (under the guidance of R R Dogonadze), he worked as Research Scientist at the Frumkin Institute of Electrochemistry (Acad Sci), Moscow (1973 - 1991), where in 1986 he defended his DSci dissertation and became Leading Scientist. In 1991 he spent a year at TU Munich, as Humboldt Guest Professor. He was then invited to the Research Centre Juelich, Germany, to lead a Theory Group in a new Institute for Energy Processing with a focus on fundamentals of fuel cells, where in 1997 he was promoted to Head of Division of Theoretical Physical Chemistry, having later received a joint appointment between the Research Centre Juelich and University of Dusseldorf as Professor of Theoretical Physics.  In August 2002 he moved to Imperial College for a Chair of Chemical Physics.

He is an expert in theoretical condensed matter chemical physics and its applications to biophysics, electrochemistry, nanoscience, and energy generation and storage. Through the years his areas of  research were electron and proton transfer reactions and processes, hydration, metal/electrolyte and liquid-liquid interfaces, transport phenomena in solid electrolytes and polymer electrolyte membranes, interaction and aggregation of helical biopolymers and the structure of chiral liquid crystals, theory of modern fuel cells (PEFC/DMFC, SOFC) and super-capacitors. His current research interests focus on DNA biophysics, optofluidics and nanoplasmonics, molecular electronics and machines, ionic liquids and their applications. He has published over 200 original papers and 25 review articles, filed several patents, edited 5 multi-author books and a number of special issues.

He was a recipient of 1991 Humboldt Prize in Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, 2001 Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, RSC 2006 Geoffrey Barker Electrochemistry Medal; RSC 2010 interdisciplinary Prize, Medal, and Lectureship; he is a Fellow of International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, International Society of Electrochemistry, Institute of Physics, Society of Biology, and Royal Society of Chemistry – which reflects  interdisciplinary character of his research. He is a Foreign Member of Royal Danish Academy of Science. 

Paul W M Blom was born in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in 1965. He received his Ir Degree (Physics) in 1988 and his PhD Degree in 1992, respectively, from the Technical University Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. His thesis work was on picosecond charge carrier dynamics in GaAs quantum wells. At Philips Research Laboratories he was engaged in the electrical characterization of various oxidic thin-film devices, the electro-optical properties of polymer light-emitting diodes and the field of rewritable optical storage based on phase-change and magneto-optical recording using blue laser diodes. In May 2000 he was appointed as a Professor at the University of Groningen, where he was heading a group in the field of electrical and optical properties of organic semiconducting devices. The main research focus was on the device physics of polymeric light-emitting diodes, transistors, solar cells and memories. He co-authored nearly 200 papers in these research fields. In September 2008 he has been appointed as the Scientific Director of the Holst Centre in Eindhoven where the focus is on the realization of electronic systems in foil.   

Professor Henry Snaith FRS undertook his PhD at the University of Cambridge, working on organic photovolatics under Professor Sir Richard Friend FRS, then spent two years at the EPFL, Switzerland, as a post doc working on dye-sensitised solar cells under Professor Michael Grätzel. He returned to Cambridge to take up a Fellowship for Clare College in 2006, and moved to the Clarendon Laboratory of Oxford Physics in 2007, where he now holds a professorship and directs a group researching in optoelectronics, specifically organic, hybrid and perovskite devices. His research is focused on developing new materials and structures for hybrid solar cells and understanding and controlling the physical processes occurring at interfaces. He has made a number of significant advances for emerging photovoltaics, including the recent discovery that metal halide perovskites can operate extremely efficiently in thin film based solar cells. His recent work with perovskite solar cells has transformed the PV research community, and arguably created a new field of research. Professor Snaith has received a number of research awards including the Institute of Physics Patterson Medal and Prize (2012), the Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2014) and the European Materials Research Society EU-40 Materials Prize (2015) and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2015. In addition to awards, he was named one of ‘Nature’s 10’ people who mattered in 2013, and assessed as being the world’s second most influential scientific mind in 2016, based on citations of his seminal scientific papers on perovskite solar cells. In December 2010 he founded Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd which is rapidly commercializing the perovskite solar technology transferred from his university laboratory.

Ralph G Nuzzo is the G L Clark Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a faculty he joined in 1991 and where he also holds an appointment as a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. He received an AB degree with High Honors and Highest Distinction in Chemistry from Rutgers College in 1976 and earned a PhD in Organic Chemistry from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980. He accepted the position of Member of Technical Staff in Materials Research at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ in 1980, where he was named a Distinguished Member of the Staff in Research in 1987.  He joined the Illinois faculty in 1991. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Chemical Society, the World Innovation Foundation, and the American Vacuum Society.  He awards include the Forschungspreis of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2011, co-recipient of the George E Smith Award of the IEEE in 2008, the Wall Street Journal Innovators Award for Semiconductors in 2006, and the Adamson Award of the American Chemical Society in 2003 for original discoveries leading to the development of self-assembled monolayers. He currently serves as a Senior Editor of Langmuir as well as a member of numerous advisory boards for both public and private entities. He is a cofounder of Semprius—a company developing new forms of high performance electronics. 

Biography not yet available

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, especially lithium and sodium batteries. Recent efforts have focused on the synthesis and understanding of new materials for lithium and sodium-ion batteries, on understanding anomalous oxygen redox processes in transition metal oxides used as high capacity Li-ion cathodes, the challenges of the lithium-air battery and the influence of order on the ionic conductivity of polymer electrolytes. His pioneering work has provided many advances.

Peter received the Tilden Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2008, the Carl Wagner Award of the Electrochemical Society in 2011, the Liversidge Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016 and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 2017. He has also been selected as Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

As well as directing the UK Energy Storage Hub (SuperStore) and a consortium on lithium batteries, Peter is a founder and Chief Scientist of the Faraday Institution, the UK centre for research on electrochemical energy storage. Peter also took up the position of Physical Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society in November 2018.

Clare P Grey is the Geoffrey Moorhouse-Gibson Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge. She received a BA and DPhil (1991) in Chemistry from the University of Oxford.  After post-doctoral fellowships in the Netherlands and at DuPont CR&D in Wilmington, DE, she joined the faculty at Stony Brook University (SBU) as an Assistant (1994), Associate (1997) and then Full Professor (2001 – 2015).  She moved to Cambridge in 2009, maintaining an adjunct position at SBU. She was director (2009 – 2010) and associate director (2011 – 2014) of the Northeastern Chemical Energy Storage Center, a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center. Recent honours/awards include the Research Award from the International Battery Association (2013), the Royal Society Davy Award (2014), the Arfvedson-Schlenk-Preis from the German Chemical Society (2015), the Société Chimique de France, French-British Prize (2017) and the International Solid State Ionics Galvani-Nernst-Wagner Mid-Career Award (2017), of which she is the first recipient. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2017 has been elected as a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and Fellow of the Electrochemical Society. Her current research interests include the use of solid state NMR and diffraction-based methods to determine structure-function relationships in materials for energy storage (batteries and supercapacitors), conversion (fuel cells) and carbon capture.