Hattie Chisnall, third year PhD student at the School of Engineering and Materials Science, has been awarded the prize to the best Sustainable Engineering Centre research poster at the ILF event held on Tuesday 5th November 2024.

Hattie's poster summarised her PhD project 'Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Value-Added Chemicals via Electroreduction' which she is conducting in Prof Ana Sobrido's group.

Hattie research focuses on the design and manufacturing of freestanding carbon fibre electrodes decorated with metal electrocatalysts. She uses electrospinning to process lignin and polyacrylonitrile intro fibres of controlled diameter and surface chemistry.

The addition of copper, gold or silver nanoparticles promotes their activity to catalyse the electroreduction of carbon dioxide into valuable products. These products are analysed by gas chromatography technique and may include carbon monoxide, methane and formaldehyde.