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Tag: chemistry

  • Grey, blue, or green? What colour is hydrogen?

    Grey, blue, or green? What colour is hydrogen?

    The June talk will be given by Prof. Andrea Russell who will be talking about hydrogen. To meet our net zero goals we must move away from burning fossil fuels for electricity production and transport. A hydrogen economy is based on splitting water to form hydrogen and oxygen and then recombining these by combustion or…

  • Chemistry: Solving the World’s Problems

    Chemistry: Solving the World’s Problems

    Humankind faces many challenges including the climate crisis, plastic pollution and healthcare among others. Chemistry lies at the heart of many potential solutions, but only in partnership with a wide range of other disciplines. Chemists need to collaborate with others, including biologists, engineers, politicians and economists, to implement these solutions at scale and in short…

  • Everything you wanted to know about chemistry, but were too scared to ask…

    Everything you wanted to know about chemistry, but were too scared to ask…

    The January talk will be given by Prof. David Read of the University of Southampton who will be shedding light on the complex world of chemistry. If I had a pound for every time some said ‘I hated chemistry at school’, I’d be a very rich man!  Chemistry teachers have the unenviable task of trying…

  • Slow Water

    Slow Water

    The May talk will be given by Dr Chris Bore of Kingston University who will be exploring the very peculiar and poorly understood properties of water, and how these properties are key to our world and life upon it. Water is the most common, and most mysterious, substance on Earth. Shaped by deep subtleties of…

  • Discovery of the Elements: Geography & Fame

    Discovery of the Elements: Geography & Fame

    The January talk will be given by Chick Wilson, Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Science and Chair in Physical Chemistry at the University of Bath. We scientists like to think of ourselves as rational, analytical and fair, so one would expect this to be reflected in some of the highest profile areas, such…

  • Making Things Work in the Mysterious Metastable World

    The January talk will be given by Prof. Chick Wilson of the University of Bath who will be talking about some clever chemistry. From stopping garden swings in defiance of gravity to colour changing cars and incredibly tiny on-off switches, Bath Chemist Professor Chick Wilson invites you into his Mysterious Metastable World. Chick will explain…

  • Tenth Anniversary!

    The January talk will be the tenth anniversary of Salisbury Cafe Scientifique. During that period there have been over a hundred fascinating talks on a broad range of subjects.

  • Biofuels: Fuelling the future or big fraud?

    The July talk will be given by Prof. David Read of the University of Southampton who will be talking about the viability of biofuels. This talk will explore the viability of biofuels as a sustainable solution to the “energy crisis”. The focus will be on the chemistry behind the fuels as well as the social,…

  • Frontiers of Coordination Nanospace: from crystal sponges to sustainability

    The January talk will be given by Dr Darren Bradshaw, School of Chemistry, University of Southampton. The nanoscale space within high surface area porous solids such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) allows chemists and materials scientist’s to control the reactivity and organisation of guest molecules hosted within. This presentation will explore some of the unique properties…

  • Liquid Crystals: the fourth state of matter and today’s flat-screen displays

    The September talk will be given by Prof. David Dunmur, visiting professor at the University of Manchester in the Liquid Crystal Group and co-author of Soap, Science and Flatscreen TVs (with Tim Sluckin). Although liquid crystals were discovered 125 years ago, they might have been forgotten as a scientific backwater had not a little known…