Congratulations to Rehab Al Botros who has recently passed her viva. Rehab has now taken on a postdoctoral position within the group!

Once again, the Warwick Electrochemistry and Interfaces Group hosted 23 young enthusiastic international students participating in the annual 'London International Youth Science Forum' (LIYSF). LIYSF is a two week residential event held at Imperial College London, with lectures and demonstrations from leading scientists, visits to industrial sites, research centres, scientific institutions and organisations, including world class laboratories and universities. LIYSF attracts over 350 of the world's leading young scientists aged 17-21 years old from more than 60 participating countries. There is an active social calendar with events designed to enable those from around the world to learn about different cultures. The scope of LIYSF extends further than broadening scientific understanding to engage students in education on other cultures and develop lasting, international friendships.

The students enjoyed a day full of hands-on activities, giving them a glimpse of the cutting-edge research at the electrochemistry and interfaces group.

Small groups of students investigated structural and electrochemical properties of in-house grown carbon nanotube network (CNT), prepared by Sharel. The students got hands-on experience with electrochemical techniques, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). They also got to investigate the material properties of diamond! Most important was the interaction between the young visitors and group members who both hugely inspired each other, talking over lunch. We were extremely impressed with the questions asked by the students in attendance.

Recently, the quarterly Midlands LabVIEW Users Group meeting took place in the MOAC Seminar room. Organised by WEIG's resident LabVIEW experts Ashley Page and Sophie Kinnear. Run by Argenta Consulting, the group attracts programming and engineering companies from all over the midlands and presents an excellent opportunity to network. In addition to this there were two talks. The first from Sophie Kinnear about the FPGA based scanning probe microscopy program she works on within WEIG. 

Secondly a code review of a robust DAQ based structure used by Martin Griffiths at Metis Automation. The meeting was wrapped up with the a tour of the WEIGs labs given by Sophie.

The "Diamond Team" of WEIG (those that are investigating the uses of diamond for electrochemical applications) were invited to conduct an exhibition at the Science Lates evening at the Science Museum on the 24th of June. Science Lates is an event for the general public to investigate the "next big thing" in science.

The group had a range of activities organised to teach about the properties of diamond, including:

general knowledge (a quiz based challenge);

the structure of diamond (having a try at building an atomistic model);

the thermal conductivity of diamond (trying to cut ice with different materials, including diamond);

learning about the pressure required to make diamond using HPHT (strongman, test your strength) and how doping diamond makes it conductive (connecting circuits with insulating and boron doped diamond).

Everyone had a great time, and it was clear that many people went away learning that diamond is not just a gemstone!

Thank you to all those involved!

On Monday the 22nd of June, the Midlands Electrochemistry Group annual meeting was held at Warwick. MEG allows PhD electrochemists from different research groups across the Midlands to do talks and present posters to their peers in a friendly conference environment.

Prizes won by the group included best poster won by both Tania and Maria, along with Minkyung recieving the runner up poster prize. Sze and Lingcong got second and third prizes for their talks respectively.

Plenary talks were given by Professor Alan Bond and Dr Jie Zhang. Thank you to the event sponsors: Uniscan Instruments, Alvatek, Metrohm, IJ Cambria, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the International Society of Electrochemistry.