The Postgraduate Research Symposium 2013 took place on Wednesday 29^th of May in the Mathematics Institute. Three parallel sessions comprised by 3^rd year PhD student talks with 2^nd year postgrads presenting posters. In the Physical & Theoretical chemistry session five of the electrochemistry group members gave oral presentations on their work (Rehab Al Botros, Paul Kirkman, Robert Lazenby, Jon Newland, and Amelia Perry) and in the poster session Barak, Rob C., Binoy, and Sophie highlighted their research.

Congratulations to Jon for winning best session talk and Paul for being the runner up. But the success story didn’t stop there…Sophie Kinnear walked away with the 1^st prize for her poster with Barak Aaronson also the runner up winner with this being the group’s most successful representation in this annual symposium!

For more photos of the event (courtesy of Ken Westwood) click here.

The group took part at the annual MEG meeting held in the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham on the 17^th of April. 37 members of the group were there and four of our 2^nd & 3^rd year PhD students gave oral presentations on their work:

• Rob Lazenby on ‘New Developments in Intermittent Contact-Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy: Nanoscale Imaging and Hopping Mode'
• Paul Kirkman on ‘Localised diazonium modification of sp2 carbon surfaces through high-resolution electrochemistry’
• Changhui Chen on ‘Pseudo-single crystal electrochemistry on polycrystalline electrodes: Visualizing single grain activity for Fe^2+/3+ and oxygen reduction reaction’
• Jon Newland on ‘Investigation of Molecular Partitioning Between Oil Droplets and Aqueous Solution using Double Potential Step Chronoamperometry’

Paul was a well deserved runner up and all our group's talks were of a high standard - so well done to all four presenters. After the meeting the group went on a 'Trip to Jerusalem'…England’s oldest Inn located at the foot of Nottingham castle for a great meal and the finest real ales in town.

A special thanks to Rob Lazenby who organised the trip to Nottingham, and to Max Joseph and Alexander 'Parky' Parker, our very own mini bus drivers.

On February 17^th-21^st, Robert Lazenby, Marc Baghdadi and Prof Pat Unwin went to the 7^th workshop on scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) and related techniques. The conference was held in Ein-Gedi, Israel and led by Prof. Daniel Mandler (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

Marc presented his work as a poster (Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy as a Probe of Localized Fluxes in Live Cell Imaging). Robert presented a talk covering recent work using nanoelectrodes and hopping mode imaging for Intermittent Contact-SECM (New Developments in Intermittent Contact-SECM: Nanoscale Imaging and Hopping Mode). Pat presented a talk demonstrating the use of Scanning Electrochemical Cell Microscopy (SECCM) for electrochemical imaging of heterogeneous electrode surfaces at nanoscale resolution (Scanning Electrochemical Cell Microscopy: New Features in Electrochemistry at the Nanoscale).

Whilst in Israel, they went into the Dead Sea, had a mud bath and sulfur shower, hiked through the Ein Gedi nature reserve and visited the ancient fortification of Masada.

Once again the group performed strongly at the Midland Electrochemistry Group (MEG) meeting held at University of Birmingham in June. James won an award for the best talk ‘Electrochemical and Spectroscopic properties of boron doped diamond’. Barak and Hui also walked away with 1^st prize in the poster competition for their work on ‘Visualising single grain activity on polycrystalline Pt’.

Congratulations to Rehab who won the best poster prize at the 4^th European Conference of Crystal Growth (ECCG4) held in Glasgow, Scotland