A. Jorge Sobrido´s Research Group

Michael Thielke has officially started his EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship ElectroBioLiS, a project that will develop freestanding spinnable sulfur-rich copolymers in combination with conductive carbon particles which can be directly used as a cathode in a lithium sulfur battery without the need to making an ink to deposit onto a current collector. This project will have a positive impact in the battery community and beyond. Sulfur co-polymers have shown to exhibit outstanding capabilities in domains such as mercury capture from aqueous solutions, application for which freestanding fibre mats with large surface area would be highly beneficial. Congratulations, Michael – this is an exciting project!

Making the most of the weather, we decided to head to Victoria Park for another relaxing picnic with the group – also to celebrate Michael’s birthday, happy birthday, Michael! 🙂

After three fruitful years as postdoc in our group at QMUL, Mauricio is leaving to pursue a new adventure with his company Eutechtics, a dynamic startup tackling climate change by developing modern, sustainable chemical processes that decarbonise key parts of global supply chains! You have been a fantastic member of the group and will be greatly missed. Wishing you the best in this new stage of your career!

Great afternoon enjoying the amazing London weather in Victoria Park!

Ana shared her group’s latest work on electrodes for flow batteries at the First Annual Energy, Materials and Environment International Symposia held at London Southbank University. It was great to hear the research by the rest of participants on sustainable energy approaches and materials.

June 10-13, 2025

The conference was organised in partnership with the ScotCHEM (the consortium of Scottish Chemistry Departments), and the University of St. Andrews, with the goal of bringing together researchers working on the theme of Molecules for Net Zero and Materials for Net Zero to join forces in developing solutions to the challenges of Net Zero. It was also the first meeting of the National Network of Sustainable Chemistry for Net Zero https://flfnetzeronetwork.co.uk/

The Sobrido’s group went on their first hike of the year! We set off at QMUL and walked to Hackney marshes, 12 km in total! Well done everyone! We will do another one soon 🙂

In April 2025, Ana presented her work using biomass-derived fibres for energy applications, as part of the UCL Chemical Engineering workshop on “Women as Sustainability Leaders”.

At the end of the staff meeting on the 11th December 2024 and just before the SEMS annual Christmas Staff Party, we hosted our annual SEMS Staff Prize Celebration. We had a record number of nominations this year with the awards being spread across the entire SEMS community. Ana was awarded the Research Environment Award, as an acknowledgement of her efforts to lead research activities and support early career researchers.

Hattie 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.