University of Otago, Department of Chemistry

He Honoka Hauwai / German-NZ Green Hydrogen Centre

It was great to have all 5 PhD students from our jointly funded German-NZ “Low cost hydrogen storage materials from NZ resources” project with us at the second NZ Hydrogen Symposium (NZHS-2) at Te Papa, Wellington, 31 Jan -2 Feb.

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We celebrated PhD student Alhasan Abdulwahid’s (Otago) excellent contributed talk on the impact of dual fuel (diesel-hydrogen) heavy vehicles on NZ’s energy system, and research fellow Dr Kai Sellschopp (Helmholtz Zentrum Hereon) winning second prize for his poster presentation on theoretical modelling of hydrogen storage materials. 

It has also been fantastic to host the head of the Institute for Hydrogen Technology at Hereon - Professor Thomas Klassen. During his visit, we have had many profitable discussions, which we will be following up on. Hereon and Otago co-host He Honoka Hauwai / German-NZ Green Hydrogen Centre for research, networking and outreach and we are also working together on the above research grant.

Brooker Group

Matt Robb, who completed his PhD with Professor Sally Brooker, (thesis title: ‘Towards dual functional spin crossover complexes’) has recently accepted a Postdoctoral Fellowship with Associate Professor Hanna Boström at Stockholm University, Sweden, starting in early April. Matt will be studying spin crossover in Hoffman-type frameworks in a project funded by the Wallenberg Initiative - Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE). The focus will be on synthesising new materials and investigating their use as guest sensors.