Meet the PhD students recognised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council as first among equals

The EPSRC Doctoral Prize was designed to help universities retain and recruit the very best PhD students - and the Department of Chemistry is delighted to have captured four of them.

The quartet of prize winners is made up of the following rising stars:

Research Associate, Dr Adrian Gainar – who is working in the field of lipid self-assembly. Sponsor: Professor John Seddon.

PhD student in the Kucernak group, Daniel Malko – who is working on-precious metal catalysts for fuel cells. Sponsor: Professor Anthony Kucernak.

Daniel is co-inventor of a novel fuel cell capable of generating electrical energy from the organic molecules present in waste water, while also cleaning the water.

This has led to the formation of new Imperial spinout company called SweetGen Ltd, which aims to introduce its technology to industrial sites, such as breweries or biofuel facilities, where the water produced has a high concentration of organic contaminants, such as sugars.

Currently, waste water at these sites must be pre-cleaned before carrying on to general water treatment facilities, so SweetGen’s technology could help them reduce both energy consumption and water treatment costs.

Postdoctoral Researcher in the Ashley Research group, Dr Daniel J Scott – who is working on new new energy-efficient catalysts to turn nitrogen to ammonia. Sponsor: Dr Andrew Ashley.

Head of Department, Professor Alan Armstrong is keen to explain the potential significance of this work: ‘Being able to turn nitrogen into ammonia for fertiliser without the high temperatures required by the current Haber process could make food production more energy efficient’. This is particularly important, given growing concerns around global food security.

Member of the Kuimova group, Aurimas Vysniauskas – who is working to develop a set of novel temperature and viscosity sensors that are tethered to surfaces. Sponsor: Dr Marina Kuimova.

The College wishes each of them the greatest success in the next phase of their careers.