NanoteC is the longest-running nanocarbon conference in Europe and this year marks the return to Sussex where it was first held 25 years ago. We also plan to mark 15 years of liquid-phase exfoliation of graphene with a focus on solution-processed nanocarbons.  I have thoroughly enjoyed doing my bit to help organise the venue space, work on the budgeting, and collate abstracts. This conference is always great fun to attend and I'm sure it will be equally as fun to host.

The work I undertook as part of my PhD with molybdenum disulphide nanosheet networks has led to some interesting applications due to the understanding I have gained of nanosheet behaviour. One such application is the biological uses for some materials such as graphene, molybdenum disulphide and more. Here I prepared substrates using optimised nanosheet networks to observe their influence on protein unfolding response. 

My PhD was a perfect segway from my masters project as I looked more in-depth at the semiconductor molybdenum disulphide and the behaviour of networks comprising of nanosheets. I was fortunate to lead my area of research within a very large research group, under Professor Alan Dalton, and pioneered the technologies that resulted from my optimisation of materials. With an end goal to understand network morphology and properties to create gas sensing devices that are competitive on the industrial market.

Although my masters at the University of Surrey was very nuclear physics heavy, I continued my pursuit of materials and completed my masters dissertation with Dr Izabela Jurewicz in the soft matter group. This project began as a study of photonic crystals and how the introduction of semiconductor molybdenum disulphide can change the optical constants of a material. Perfect to help understand and optimise a multitude of optoelectronic devices!

My interest in semiconductor materials for green chemistry began at the University of Greenwich when I started my bachelors project with Professor Petra Ágota Szilágyi. Here I synthesised MOFs (metal-organic frameworks)  UiO-66 and UiO-67 and used the porous MoFs to control the particle size of iron oxide. The goal here was to tune the band gap to an optimum for hydrogen evolution.