STFC: Samuel D. Walton: 2062533 Near-Earth space holds two major surprises that scientists are yet to understand, one of which is the Van Allen Radiation Belts. As an astrophysical object, the Earth's magnetosphere would seem to be a rather small and insignificant item bathed by the wind that emanates from the Sun. However, this space contains an exotic zoo of high energy particles and electromagnetic waves that pose a significant hazard to space exploration. In the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field is altered such that its bar magnet field becomes a bullet-shaped cavity that shields the Earth from the harmful output from the Sun. Only in specific circumstances can the solar wind penetrate this shield, and it is under these circumstances that the Earth's space environment becomes the most interesting and dynamic. The Earth's Radiation Belts were discovered by James Van Allen some 50 years ago quite by chance. These belts are doughnut-shaped regions of high-energy particle radiation trapped by Earth's magnetic field. These electrons are energised to significant fractions of the speed of light but as yet, scientists can offer no definitive explanation for how they are accelerated to such high energies. Since the discovery of the radiation belts, scientists have linked the acceleration and resultant loss of these electrons to the impact of large geomagnetic storms caused by explosive output from the Sun (such as Coronal Mass Ejections) on near-Earth space. However, no conclusive evidence has been put forward which can adequately explain this link. Understanding how these electrons are accelerated to very high energies (and then lost) is of critical importance to the exploitation of near-Earth space for human and technological gain. Most communication and military satellites must orbit through this harsh radiation environment. In fact, several satellite failures have been attributed to component failure during geomagnetic storms. It is essential, therefore, to monitor this "space weather" in order to protect the multi-billion pound space industry. This placement will be taken by Samuel Walton under the guidance of Professor Ian Mann, and will focus on the energetic electron dynamics in the Van Allen Radiation Belts from a long-lasting NASA spacecraft mission and, coupled with another NASA mission, be able to understand the dynamics of the radiation belts from the relative safety of low-earth orbit using novel techniques developed at the University of Alberta. The proposed project is therefore the natural culmination of methods and ideas developed separately in the UK and Canada, to advance our understanding of Van Allen radiation belt dynamics, improving current models and ultimately improving our ability to predict the behaviour.

The synthesis of conjugated polyynes is a genuine scientific challenge nowadays. Although several methods have been reported over the last decades, diverse and efficient methods for the synthesis of compounds bearing more than two conjugated CC triple bonds remain inadequate. In this project, we propose to use alkyne metathesis as a new "soft" and expedient method for the synthesis of triynes, tetraynes, pentaynes and beyond. On the basis of promising preliminary results obtained with triynes, we proposed new catalysts that are designed to control the selectivity towards the targeted polyynes. After evaluating the scope and limitations of our methodology, it will be applied to the synthesis of polyynes that are currently inaccessible with known methods in the field of physical organic chemistry. An ultimate goal of the project is the synthesis of C24, a cyclic allotrope of carbon.

EPSRC: Thomas Robinson: EP/S023070/1 Static mixers are solid structures that can be inserted into process piping to homogenise a fluid flow as it passes through it. This means that at any point in the pipe, the fluid is the same as at any other point. Currently, multiple different designs of static mixer exist, and the two most eminent static mixers are the Chemineer KM mixer and the Sulzer SMX mixer. These came to prominence in the early 1980s and most sold static mixers are derivative of these two designs. As part of my Chemical Engineering Master's thesis at the University of Birmingham, I worked with CALGAVIN LTD on the design of a brand-new static mixer design and compared it against those current market leaders. To assess the capabilities of this design we employed the use of Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF). Put simply, if a mixture of two separate fluids is pumped into the inlet of static mixer, at the outlet of the mixer, the two fluids will have become more mixed. If you add a dye that fluoresces under laser light to one of the initial fluids, you can shine a laser at the outlet of the static mixer to make the dye give off light. This light can be captured with a camera and generates an image that shows the distribution of the fluid in the pipe after mixing. By doing some post-processing and calibration, the exact concentration of each fluid can be calculated from this image as well as a value for how mixed it is. Different static mixers and different flow conditions (temperatures, viscosities, velocity, etc...) can be tested and compared to find which static mixer offers the best mixing. The PLIF research validated the new static mixer and showed it has promise against the KM-type and SMX-type mixers. This PLIF technique can be used to rapidly iterate a new static mixer design but it has inherent downsides. Like when mixing squash and water, they cannot be unmixed. It is the same with the PLIF experiments, the test fluids are irreversibly mixed. When this test fluid is expensive, it adds significant costs to experimental testing. To mitigate this expense, this 12-week research project has been proposed. The premise is to use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to run analogous testing in computer simulations. If the simulations can be accurately mapped to the experimental results that have already been taken, it will allow a computer to test multiple small design changes to the static mixer that could never all be tested experimentally. This proposal represents a significant benefit to both the UK and Canadian parties involved. The University of Birmingham and CALGAVIN will gain access to the expertise of the modelling team in the University of Alberta and in return, they will receive world-class experimental data that can be used to hone their simulations to match real work experimentation. The output of this research will, therefore, be higher confidence in more accurate CFD simulation techniques as well as drastically lower development costs of the new static mixer with increased chances of it becoming a viable market product.

The last decade has seen staggering advances in our ability to acquire and process information at the single atom and single molecule levels. Both the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) and its slightly younger sibling, the atomic force microscope (AFM), now enable individual atoms to be probed, positioned, and, in essence, programmed by exploiting control of an impressively wide variety of physicochemical processes and properties right down to the single chemical bond limit. In recent work by Andreas Heinrich's team at IBM Research Labs, the worlds of quantum information processing and not just nanotechnology, but atomtech, have excitingly been bridged. This opens up entirely new approaches to not just quantum computing* but much more energy-efficient classical information processing via spin control in solid state devices (whose power consumption is increasingly unsustainable for many applications.) Although exceptionally impressive, the single atom qubits achieved by the IBM team are fabricated and manipulated on a bespoke material system involving a thin oxide film on a metal substrate. This is unfortunately not the most technologically relevant or scalable of architectures. Our New Horizons application instead involves information processing, logic, and spin control at the single atom level in silicon, a material that remains at the very core of our information society and will likely remain there for quite some time to come. We will exploit recent advancements in the fabrication of atomic-scale Boolean gates by Bob Wolkow's team at the University of Alberta to develop a new spin logic architecture based on the surprising "innate" magnetism of electron orbitals created on an atomically sculpted silicon surface.