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Royal Society of Chemistry Photochemistry Group's Young and Early Career Researchers' Meeting

The Royal Society of Chemistry Photochemistry Group will be holding its biannual Young and Early Career Researchers' Meeting on Wednesday, January 13th 2010, 11 am - 5 pm in the Department of Chemistry, Durham University

The meeting will cover all aspects of photochemistry, including:

The Young and Early Career Researchers' Meeting will provide an opportunity for postgraduate students, post-doctoral researchers and their supervisors to meet others working in the field, and to present their work in the form of a poster or oral presentation.

Abstracts are invited on research which falls within the areas of interest of the group. A number of abstracts will be selected for short oral presentation, whilst a poster session will form a major part of the meeting.

The meeting will open and close with keynote lectures by:

Registration fees:

Registration covers lunch, refreshment breaks and book of abstracts.

Deadline for abstract submission: Friday, December 18th 2009

A registration form is available at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/j.a.g.williams/RSCphotochem.htm (external link)

Abstracts should be prepared using the template provided at the above website, and submitted electronically to:
j.a.g.williams@durham.ac.uk

SPEA-5: A Report

5th European Conference on Solar Photochemistry & Photocatalysis: Environmental Applications Palermo, Italy, Oct 4-8 A short report - by Gianluca LI PUMA, Photocatalysis & Photoreaction Engineering, University of Nottingham The SPEA conference is held every two years since 2000.

The first meeting was organized by Prof. Didier Robert who is the president of SPEA. SPEA-5 was organized by the Schiavello-Grillone Photocatalysis Group from the University of Palermo. The Chairman and Co-chairman were Prof. Leonardo Palmisano and Prof. Vincenzo Augugliaro.

The Scientific Committee included members from all continents: O. Alfano (Argentina), A. Amat (Spain), M. Anderson (U.S.A.), M. Anpo (Japan), V. Augugliaro (Italy), D. Bahnemann (Germany), M. Bekbölet (Turkey), V. Brezová (Slovak Republic), W. Choi (South Chorea), D. Dionisiou (U.S.A.), I. Dekani (Hungary), J. M. Doña Rodriguez (Spain), R. Enríquez (Mexico), J. L. Faria (Portugal), J. Giménez Farreras (Spain), J.-M. Herrmann (France), H. Hidaka (Japan), W. Jardim (Brazil), M. A. Kherbeche (Morocco), H. Kisch (Germany), J. Krýsa (Czech Republic), G. Li Puma (U.K.), M. Litter (Argentina), G. Mailhot (France), S. Malato (Spain), H. Mansilla (Chile), D. Mantzavinos (Greece), A. Mills (U.K.), C. Minero (Italy), S. A. Mottaleb (Egypt), J. A. Navío Santos (Spain), B. Ohtani (Japan), E. Oliveros (Germany), L. Palmisano (Italy), V. Parmon (Russian Federation), Y. Paz (Israel), P. Pichat (France), S. Preis (Estonia), C. Pulgarin (Switzerland), D. Robert (France), U. L. Stangar (Slovenia), M. Subrahmanyam (India), X. Verykios (Greece), J. Zhao (China).

237 papers were presented for a total of 757 authors. The conference room was full to capacity. The proceedings of the conference (extended abstracts with figures and tables) have been published in a thick book (ISBN: 978.88.95272.66.5) – highly recommended. Selected papers will appear in special issues of Catalysis Today and Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences.

Four excellent plenary lectures were delivered:

  1. H. Kisch – Semiconductor Photocatalysis for Novel Organic Synthesis? – Highlighted that the use of the term “synthesis” is not justified in most cases of organic synthesis via semiconductor photocatalysis.
  2. C. Minero – Surface Tuning of Reactivity and Selectivity in Photocatalysis – Explained the importance of back-reactions in the mechanism of photocatalytic oxidation of organic species and the role of singlet oxygen which is on average 10% of the production rate of OH radicals.
  3. M. Anpo – New trends in the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of Titanium Oxide Based Photocatalysts as Environmentally Friendly Catalysts – Dealt with the decomposition of H2O to H2 and O2 with a separate evolution, using visible light-responsive TiO2 thin film irradiated by sunlight; the reduction of CO2 with H2O to form methanol and O2 on Ti-oxide single site heterogeneous photocatalysts.
  4. O. Alfano – Modeling of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Photoreactors: Three Application to Advanced Oxidation Processes – Explained a general methodology for the analysis and design of photoreactors based on the fundamentals of chemical reaction engineering and radiative transfer. Three different applications of Advanced Oxidation Processes were modeled: gas phase photocatalysis over thin films, homogenous photo-Fenton and liquid-phase slurry TiO2 photocatalysis.

Oral and poster papers were given equal importance. Posters in each session were introduced and summarized by a 15 min presentation by a distinguished author.

The technical programme was divided in five topics:

  1. Catalysts and Processes for Solar Light utilization - 9 oral and 25 poster presentations
  2. Photodegradation in Gas & Liquid Systems: Catalysts, Reaction Mechanisms & Processes – 9 oral and 43 poster presentations.
  3. Photocatalysts Developments: Preparation, Doping & Characterization – 12 oral and 66 poster presentations.
  4. Novel Photocatalytic Processes and Process Assessment - 12 oral and 24 poster presentations.
  5. From Fundamentals to Applications - 7 oral and 26 poster presentations.

Participants of notable experience included (incomplete list) Ohtani, Anpo, Hidaka, Ohno (Japan), Zhao (China), Kisch, Braun, Oliveros, Peterka, Malato, Esplugas, Krysa, Farias, Brezova, Hermann, Pulgarin, Lianos, Paz, Minero, Pellizetti, Bekbolet, Maldotti, Drioli, Stangar, Morawsky (Europe), Alfano, Litter (south America) Dionysiou (USA).

There was a lot of emphasis on photocatalysts (doped TiO2 or coupled semiconductors) activated by visible radiation, hydrogen production by solar photocatalysis, disinfection of water and destruction of pharmaceuticals and pesticides. The standardization of photocatalysis was a topic discussed at the conference.

The scientific quality of the poster and oral presentations was very high and I concluded that this was the most complete and most successful conference on photocatalysis I have ever attended! The organization, facilities, location, entertainment and lunch/dinner were of the highest quality. The sun never stopped to shine other than at night!

It was a tremendous opportunity for networking and for developing research collaborations. I returned to Nottingham with new ideas, several new collaborations with researchers in Portugal, Italy, Argentina and Greece, invitations to give seminars at Barcelona, Porto, Athens and Patras University, a few planned papers and most importantly with lots of sun on my face.

The next SPEA conference, SPEA-6, will be held in Prague in June 2010 – not to be missed!

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