Taking place on the 17th of June 2024, this year’s Great Western Electrochemistry Meeting gathered together PhD students, industry guests, and early-career researchers across the greater South-West region to the University of Bath, where they presented and shared their ongoing research in the varied field of Electrochemistry. This year, many discussions centred around energy storage and the development of battery technologies. Many presentations were also held demonstrating new techniques for fuel cells; the use of electricity in molecular and bio-organic chemical transformation; and the development of water electrolyser technology for hydrogen.
The event was supported by four companies, who got involved to display exhibits and new equipment. Among these industry contributions were FTPHydrogen and Johnson-Matthey, who were a welcome addition to the plethora of attending specialists from Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton, Swansea and Bath; who all made valuable contributions.
Among these attendees were a variety of prize winners for poster displays, such as Nathan Harrison (Cardiff University) and their poster entitled “Assessment of hydrogen evolution reaction with Cu oxides for the CO2 reduction reaction: the influence of the support"; Valentina Corsetti (University of Bristol) and their poster entitled “Exploring CZTSSe stability for PEC hydrogen evolution: the effect of ultrathin ALD protective layers”; and to Cheng Lyu (University of Exeter) and their poster entitled “Electrodeposition of NixSy catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction in anion exchange membrane water electrolyser”.
There was also an RSC prize for the best talk, which was awarded to Izzy Khalek (Bristol University) for their talk on “Understanding the activity of LaxSr1-xCoO3 perovskite oxides for the oxidation of biomass-derived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural”. Additional Prizes were also given out for exceptional talks by PhD Students, namely Mike Jones (University of Exeter) for their talk on “Improving the performance of transition metal-based electrocatalysts for anion exchange membrane water electrolysers”; and Thom Harris-Lee (University of Bath) for their talk on “Scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) in catalysis”.
The intellectually nourishing day concluded as delightfully as it began, with a lovely sunny photo and a variety of refreshments that accompanied stimulating discussion.