SynHiSel researcher wows UK parliamentary committee

Chunchun Ye, an Edinburgh-based postdoctoral researcher with SynHiSel, has shown the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee and their guests how exciting the potential of using membranes in achieving NetZero is. She was shortlisted to present her research at STEM for BRITAIN at the Houses of Parliament in British Science Week and went on to win the prestigious Bronze in the Chemistry category.

The work, outlined in more detail on the University of Edinburgh website, was from her PhD research where she developed methodology to create more hydrophilic Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity (PIMs) that maintained their membrane forming properties and would also allow ion transport. Within a redox flow battery these membranes could allow charge carrying ions across the membrane, whilst keeping the larger redox-active molecules separate. Redox-flow batteries are a technology being developed to tackle the challenge of intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind to the grid.

Chunchun’s PhD research involved collaboration between Neil McKeown’s group in Edinburgh and Qilei Song’s group in Imperial- both groups are part of the SynHiSel Programme Grant. We’re thrilled that she’s remained at Edinburgh to do postdoctoral research with SynHiSel and has already started developing further collaborations as she builds her links with Andrew Livingston’s group at Queen Mary University London.