The 2014 Midlands "ISE Satellite Student Regional Symposium on Electrochemistry: The Midlands Electrochemistry Group (MEG) meeting was hosted on Monday, 1st April in the Department of Chemistry, University of Loughborough, sponsored by the RSc, ISE, Alvatek, Metrohm Autolab UK. The annual event is designed to bring together electrochemistry groups from universities across the midlands to share research, and provide a platform for PhD researchers to talk about their work with peers in the same field.

This year, there were close to 100 attendees, with delegations from University of Warwick, Nottingham University, University of Birmingham, Loughborough University, the University of Leicester and the University of Bath. 12 talks covering a wide variety of electrochemistry were given by postgraduate students, along with over 10 poster presentations.

WEIG student Barak Aaronson was awarded the prize for the best talk (High Resolution Electrochemical Imaging in Ionic Liquids: Surface Structure Effects on Triiodide Reduction at Platinum Electrodes) and Lingcong Meng recieved a prize for his poster (Laser Heated Diamond Electrodes). Barak will now go forward to deliver his talk at the UK national meeting Electrochem 2014, and the work on laser heated diamond electrodes will be presented at the Faraday Discussion 172 in Sheffield later this year.

The group went for an evening meal in Loughborough to celebrate (kindly organised by Rob Channon and Barak).

An interdisciplinary conference reflecting the wide range of applications of Molten Salts (also known as Ionic liquids) to research and industry was held on the 10^th of January at the University of Warwick. The conference was hosted by the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) and attracted molten salts research students from around the UK.

Many congratulations to Barak Aaronson who was awarded the Best presentation prize for his talk: ‘Spatially Resolved Electrochemistry in Ionic Liquids: Surface Structure Effects on Triiodide Reduction at Platinum Electrodes’. SECCM goes far and wide - here with the first signs of impact on the Ionic Liquid community.

On Wednesday the 28^th of August 2013 members of the Electrochemistry and Interfaces group took part in the Massey Ferguson Runners Club (MFRC) corporate 5 mile race held at the War Memorial Park, Coventry. The team, named ‘SECCM best?’, was made up of three of the fastest runners from the Two Castles Run 2013 (Pat Unwin, Barak Aaronson and Aleix Guell) as well as Dr Andrew Marsh, Associate Professor in Warwick Chemistry. ‘SECCM best?’ were actually second best (!), although beaten by ‘Aston Martin 1’ (who else?) a team consisting of professional club runners. Well done to the ‘SECCM best?’ team - we look forward to your next competition.

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.