General - CCEM Group

Felix and Cian join the CCEM Team!

This summer we have the privilege of welcoming not one, but two PhD students to the CCEM group! Cian and Felix will be working with us over the summer as Research Assistants, and in September they will officially start as PhD students. Cian has recently finished his undergraduate degree in Chemistry with Molecular Modelling here in our very own Trinity College Dublin! He’ll be collaborating with Felix, who has just come over to Ireland from Germany after completing two undergraduate degrees and two masters degrees.

Cian and Felix will be focusing on the modelling and screening of novel catalysts for green hydrogen production. They will be doing this by developing machine learning approaches to the oxygen evolution reaction. Stay posted to see the amazing work they do!

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Building Connections in KAUST!

For us academics, the summer is an important time to fully commit ourselves to research and building collaborations across the scientific community. In the spirit of this, Max has been granted a Visiting Professorship to work at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia this summer!

Max will be conducting research and working in the KAUST Catalysis Centre, which is a hub of cutting edge catalysis research. Considering the co-operation of so many experts in catalysis, we advise you to stay tuned for some incredible research!

More details about the KAUST Catalysis Centre and their amazing work can be found here, https://kcc.kaust.edu.sa/

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The CCEM Group has been awarded an SFI grant!

That’s right! We’ve recently been awarded a grant from the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) for half a million euro, to research and overcome some of the major obstacles to large scale hydrogen production. In particular, we aim to design economically feasible catalysts that are both efficient and sustainable for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER).

This project will combine both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis to develop novel hybrid catalysts with the advantages of both types of system. Of course, the amount of different catalytic candidates has increased drastically, meaning we will be employing several techniques such as density functional theory, the use scaling relations, and machine learning algorithms to speed up this process.

This grant also allows us to take on two more PhD students and a postdoctoral researcher to work on this exciting project! Feel free to get in touch if you are interested!

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We have Open Positions available!

The CCEM group has room for more people! We have PhD positions available for two enthusiastic and hard working people. These PhD students will perform exciting and cutting edge research in the field of green hydrogen production as part of the CCEM group in Trinity College Dublin. This research will have a focus on the design and modelling of electrocatalysts for the purposes of water splitting technology and is sure to provide incredible results!

More information can be found below, make sure to take a look!

CCEM_PhD_Position Download

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Welcome Manting to the CCEM Group!

It’s that time of year again where someone new joins our research group! Since 2017, the CCEM group has been steadily growing. As of then, we have had 6 full time positions and many undergraduate, masters and visiting PhD students. This year we are thrilled to announce that Manting Mu has now joined us as a PhD student!

Manting has been working with the CCEM Group since the summer of 2020 as an undergraduate student and has been awarded an IRC scholarship to continue her exciting work on C-H activation and C-C coupling reactions using DFT methods. We are delighted that we will be able to see all that she will accomplish over the next 4 years. Definitely check back in to see how her research develops.

Congratulations Manting!

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Anna joins the CCEM Group!

The CCEM group has grown so quickly since 2017 when Eric joined. He was followed a year later by Michael, and then by Arantxa and Kevin in 2019. This September, we are delighted to announce and welcome Anna Ciotti as a new PhD student! Anna will be working on the rational design of electrocatalytic materials through DFT methods with the aim of activating small molecules to produce high value chemicals and fuels. This research will be funded by the prestigious AMBER Research Centre.

With 5 permanent members since 2017, and several visiting students and undergraduates, the group has never been more active. We’re all excited to see what Anna will accomplish over the next 4 years. Make sure to check back in for updates on her research!

Congratulations Anna!

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Max Receives GEQO Best Young Scientist Award!

We have some fantastic news to share with you! Our very own Professor Max Garcia Melchor has recently been awarded the Best Young Scientist Award by the Organometallic Chemistry Group of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry! This prestigious award is one of three that the GEQO award every year.

This award targets young researchers who have made excellent contributions to the field of organometallic chemistry. Max has received this award for his work on the computational modelling of various types of metal catalysts. This news highlights the amazing work that the CCEM group has done in recent years, and sets a model for the work that we’ll continue to do.

Congratulations Max!

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Welcome Panagiotis, Manting and Oscar!

As summer comes full swing into Ireland, the CCEM group doesn’t stop growing, and this summer will see the group at its largest yet! We are delighted to announce and welcome Panagiotis Mallis, Manting Mu, and Oscar Kelly to the group. Panagiotis, currently a student in Trinity College Dublin’s MSc in Energy Science, has joined us in order to conduct his MSc project on the elucidation of CO₂ methanation processes.

Manting and Oscar are both 3^rd year Chemistry undergraduates here in Trinity College Dublin. They have joined us for a summer internship and will be conducting some fascinating research involving C – H activation processes, and C – C coupling reactions respectively. If you want more details, check out the group members page!

Come back for updates on their amazing results!

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Kevin becomes a new PhD student at the CCEM…

The CCEM has been growing faster and faster with each academic year. In 2017, Eric joined the group as the first PhD student, to work on heterogeneous catalysts for sustainable energy applications. A year later, Michael also joined us to carry out breathtaking studies on machine learning for the discovery of new and amazing catalysts. Arantxa joined us a month ago as a Postdoc, with a prestigious EDGE–Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, to carry out amazing work on the field of heterogeneous catalysis. With 3 permanent positions in 2 years and many undergraduate and visiting PhD students, the group has never been more alive.
And this month, we are immensely proud to announce that Kevin Brennan, a former undergraduate student at the CCEM Group, has been awarded a Trinity Provost PhD award to continue the amazing work he started in his undergraduate! We are so happy we’ll be able to enjoy his amazing personality, hard work and professionalism not as an undergraduate student, but as a well-deserved PhD candidate. Many congratulations Kevin!

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Outreach at CCEM: Showcasing Computational Modelling at PROBE

This week, the CCEM Group has had the opportunity of disseminating the wonders of Computational Modelling to the general public in the Trinity PROBE, as part of a series of workshops carried out by the most amazing research groups in our college. With the help of Max, Arantxa and Eric, we revealed the molecular shape of water with an interactive experiment in a giant touch screen, where everyone that came to our stand was able to see, in real-time, how water molecules are oriented in a simple molecular dynamics simulation. This is the first outreach activity that we do in the CCEM Group, and it exceeded our expectations by far. We had a lot of fun, and we cannot wait to do it again next year!