On Monday night the Chemistry extension program welcomed Professor David Read for a talk on ‘How chemistry can help in solving the World’s problems’. He tackled subjects as diverse as climate change, new fuel sources, new materials and medicines. This featured the work of many young Chemists including Lucy Hughes who has developed a new type of clingfilm from fish scales which is biodegradable and importantly does not smell of fish.
Professor Read discussed new technologies for carbon capture including converting carbon dioxide into a polymer or converting it to stone by pumping into volcanic basalt. A particular emphasis was the work on new batteries which is being developed at the University of Southampton which are currently working at five times the energy of our current designs.
The emphasis of the talk was on sustainability, ‘green’ chemistry and the acknowledgement of the central role played by current scientists and future scientists in tackling some of the most pressing problems of our time. Our grateful thanks go to Professor Read for his enlightening and inspiring talk.
