EUTOPIA-SIF Monthly Fellow Seminar - June 2023

Within the framework of the EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowship Programme, monthly fellows seminars will take place, in which the 35 researchers enrolled in the two cohorts will in turn present their research projects.

We are therefore delighted to invite you to the upcoming EUTOPIA-SIF Monthly Fellow Seminar, on Thursday 08 June 2023, 13:00-14:30 CET.

The seminar will be held on Zoom: https://cyu-fr.zoom.us/j/93189480027

Fore more information and testimonials from a few researchers from the Second Cohort of SIF Fellows, click here.

Event schedule: 

• 13:00-13:05: Introduction
   
• Cohort 1
• 13:05-13:15: Fellow Presentation: Alberto Santini (CY Cergy Paris University)
  • Project Title: When your chug-chug goes boom-boom
  • Abstract: Dear fellows who have already listened to a description of my EUTOPIA research project at least thrice, I am here with good news. I am going to present a related but different project. Imagine you are a logistics company and you go around collecting parcels at customers'. Now, some of these customers give you TIME-BOMBS! That is, their parcels have a probability of exploding which depends on how much time the parcel spends on board the vehicle. You like the $ you get when you serve a customer, but you don't like when your truck goes BOOM, and you end up on the evening news. How shall you minimise the probability of such an occurrence?
• 13:15-13:25: Q&A
   
• 13:25-13:35: Fellow Presentation: Xiaocui Wu (University of Warwick)
  • Project Title: Imaging structural and electronic properties of conjugated polymers
  • Abstract: Conjugated polymers (CPs) demonstrate tunable (opto)electronic properties, outstanding mechanical flexibility, light weight, low cost and biocompatibility, and have been implemented in thermoelectrics, (bio)electronics and neuromorphic computing. Most modern CPs proceed complex chemical compositions and structures obtained through co-polymerisation techniques. The fundamental understanding of the polymerisation mechanism of the CPs is thus essential to better control their microstructure and, consequently, their behaviour in real applications. This work combines the vacuum electrospray deposition with the ultimate spatial resolution of scanning tunnelling microscopy to provide structural information of molecules with sub-nanometer scale precision, demonstrating unexpected polymerisation defects. The interaction of the macromolecule with small dopant molecule has also been investigated.
• 13:35-13:45: Q&A
   
• Cohort 2
• 13:45-14:05: Fellow Presentation: Sébastien Lapointe (University of Warwick)
  • Project Title: Unlocking the potential of nitrous oxide using transition metal complexes
  • Abstract: Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, is a highly problematic greenhouse gas with an environmental impact 300 times greater than carbon dioxide. Rising anthropogenic emissions from fertilizer industries make nitrous oxide a growing environmental disaster that needs to be fixed at the source. Unfortunately, the inert nature of nitrous oxide makes it currently unattractive as a synthetic oxidant, making it difficult to prevent its release into the atmosphere. I will be discussing our approach of using transition-metal complexes to better understand the mechanism of nitrous oxide activation, hopefully allowing us to unlock the potential of nitrous oxide as an oxidant in industry and academic research and bringing us one step closer to reducing anthropogenic emissions of this greenhouse gas.
• 14:05-14:30: Q&A