I mentioned a couple of blogs ago that went off to london to travel on a fuel cell bus?  Well now we've gone one step better - we have a hydrogen car in the lab.  All right it's only about 25 cm long, but size isn't everything.  It has two tanks of water on the back and to get it to work, all you have to do is leave its solar panel in the sun for a bit.  The power is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen which are stored in the car.  Just uncouple the solar cell and hydrogen fuels the fuel cell which runs the car softly and silently instead of a noisy internal combustion engine.  And the only emission from this car is water, no pollutants.  So now all I need to do is get myself a bigger one....

As I mentioned in my last blog, I and some friends have been preparing for the Playtex half-moonwalk since Christmas, walking in all weathers to train, and of course decorating our bras.  Then, two days beforehand, disaster struck when I fell down some stairs and sprained my ankle.  I was devastated: would all that preparation, all that excitement be for nothing?  For the next two days,  I didn't walk on the ankle at all, I kept it coated in ice at intervals and I sat with my leg propped up - which looked pretty daft in the one meeting I made it to, I can tell you.  On the evening of the walk, I coated it in anti-inflammatory, strapped it up, and tested out my walking boots.  Several hours later, I was in London, following the marathon route!

It was the most amazing experience.  We started off in Playtex City in Hyde park, a huge tent with a party atmosphere, then sixteen thousand people streamed off into London at intervals towards the thames.  The traffic was stopped, people were cheering us on from the top of double decker buses - and who wouldn't, seeing sixteen thousand men and women in bras tramping by - everywhere we went people were supporting us.  London was lit up and alive, and even at three in the morning people were driving, out jogging, going to get a coffee.  It was incredible.

After thirteen decidedly painful miles, we made it back to the finish at around four in the morning, very tired but very pleased with ourselves.  Was it worth it?  All I can say is, if you'd like to raise some money for breast cancer research, or you would just like to do something completely nuts for a good cause, this one is a definite! 

Have you ever considered what a long way 13 miles is to walk?  I hadn't until a friend from work suggested we enter for the Playtex Moonwalk this year, which is a charity even to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research.  As a cyclist, I thought, fine, no problem, I'm reasonably fit so all I have to do is find a decent pair of trainers and it'll be a doddle.  Not so!  After getting planetary blisters from walking a paltry 5 miles, it became clear to me that the full Moonwalk, the 26 miles of the marathon, was going to be way too much suffering and cheese-grated skin.  It had to be the Half Moon, which is only 13 miles.  Only!  So as a result of this, I and a couple of friends can be found marching through the Oxfordshire countryside several times a week, which is actually great fun and inevitably ends up with us in some attractive and picturesque pub, drowning our sorrows in, unfortunately, water.  The event itself is the night of the 19th of May – wish me luck!

The kind of things NOISEmakers get to do never cease to amaze me.  A couple of weeks ago the post delivered an envelope on watermarked paper with official portcullises marking the flap.  To my surprise and initial confusion this turned out to be a very elegant invitation from the Prime Minister to attend a reception for young scientists and science communicators at 10 Downing Street.  RSVP.  It's the last thing this Yorkshire lass had ever expected to be doing with her days, and sent me into a complete panic - what does a girl wear to meet the PM?  Anything from smart working suits to extremely revealing dresses (miaow!) I discovered, looking surreptitiously around as we queued to go through the airport style security arch that allowed us into Downing Street itself. 

The reception, in a pillared room with overwhelmingly yellow decor, was an excited throng of about 150 young scientists, all excitedly telling each other what they did and why, interspersed with such eminants as the Minister for Science, the head of the Department of Trade and Industry, Lord Winston, and well-known faces from the media such as Carol Vordemann.  The PM gave a short speech which began by thanking us for our efforts in the encouragement of the UK's up and coming generations of scientists and talked about to the key role of science in the country's future.  He then went on to emphasise the importance of demystifying science, making it accessible for everyone, and breaking down the notional barriars between science and the arts and humanities.  The NOISEmakers present exchanged glances at that point, because he put his finger on exactly what NOISE is about, very much our raison-d'etre. 

Both the PM and Cherie Blair circulated, after that, and we got chance to talk to each of them about the aims of NOISE and the science which is our particular passion.  The evening ended with photos outside the door of No.10 with a particularly photogenic policeman who patiently posed with whoever wanted a tourist's momento of the event.  The lasting impression that I was left with though, beyond the dazzle of finding myself in unexpected company, was that this government have recognised the critical importance for our long term future of investing in science and that, if you're not sure what do study at university, there was never a better time to be thinking about a career as a scientist.

It's been a very black week, this week.  Not because the world of making catalysts is grim and depressing, quite the contrary, but because I've been making carbon-supported catalysts, and that's about as black as synthetic chemistry gets. When I make a heterogeneous catalyst, it's all about getting tiny bits of expensive metal to distribute themselves as finely as possible over a cheap support material.  The support can be a metal oxide - aluminium oxide, titanium oxide - which looks a lot like talcum powder, white and powdery and easy to work with.  Alternatively the support can be carbon, which is light and fluffy and very, very black.  Imagine grinding a pencil lead or a bit of artist's charcoal to powder, and think just how black that would be if you got it on your fingers or your clothes.  Weighing out these carbon supports is like weighing out clouds - little bits keep trying to drift off on their own.  And they don't like water very much, so to get it wet enough to stick metals to it, you have to mix it in a mixer that goes at 5000 revs per minute.  On the plus side, carbon is chemically sticky, so it's easier to deposit metals onto, and it's less hassle to wash than the oxides, and catalysts are all about getting rid of contaminants.  And, needless to say, carbon catalysts do the most amazing things to chemical reactions.  All in all, making carbon-supported catalysts isn't as black a prospect as it looks; I just have to remember to check the mirror before leaving work to make sure I don't look like a panda!

It's Friday December 22nd, the last day of work before Christmas.  Around me in the office, there are cards on every desk, chocolate on every filing cabinet, and in the lab tinsel cascades off the testing rigs.  There are some red hats in evidence, and fewer ties and suit jackets today.  The labs are unnaturally tidy as a result of the last couple of days of taking stock, throwing away the year's accumulation of leftover samples, and taking the chance to clean bits of equipment while they're switched off for the holiday.  In the office, people are sending off a last couple of emails, exchanging last-minute shopping advice with whoever is left around, and quietly anticipating the Christmas period when the technology centre closes and the progress of international catalyst research grinds to a halt, just for one brief week.  Before I, too, leave these offices and labs behind, may I wish you a perfect Christmas, and all the very best for the New Year.

One of the things I love about working in the chemical industry is the range of stuff I get to do.  While still carrying on work on catalysts for cars to reduce pollution, I'm also starting a project to make catalysts for fuel cells.  Surely you've heard of fuel cells? (okay I hadn't before I joined Johnson-Matthey but I think someone may have sneaked it onto the A-level syllabus in the last couple of years).  A fuel cell generates energy, just like an engine in a car or a generator in a power station, but instead of using petrol or coal, the fuel in a fuel cell is hydrogen.  The advantage of burning hydrogen instead of petrol is that the only thing that is produced as well as energy is water.  If we had efficient fuel cells, I could stop worrying about how much nitrous oxide, hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide came out of car exhaust pipes, because our cars would be running using fuel cells instead. 

Fuel cells are being tested out in London at the moment, on the RV1 line for anyone visiting the capital, and I went there with the JM fuel cell group yesterday to do a test ride.  How did we know it was a fuel cell bus?  Well, it had "Fuel Cell Bus" written in big letters on the side, but the giveaway was the higher roof of the bus where they store the hydrogen.  The bus was quieter than a normal, diesel bus, but the greatest thing was that it didn't produce clouds of smelly exhaust smoke, only a gentle haze of steam.  According to the driver, who thought we were bonkers because we kept jumping off to take pictures of it, it drives just like a normal bus.  Fuel cell buses are running in London until January, when they move on to another European city, so if you want to be able to say you've ridden on a fuel cell bus, now's the time to go and try them out .

"Where will they send me next" should have been a rhetorical question, but it turns out that my roving days aren't over yet for this year.  This time I was sent out to the US for a few days, to the beautiful city of Philadelphia.  Needless to say I went a day early to have a look round.  Friendly atmosphere, varied architecture, great shopping and fabulous food - I can definitely recommend trips to this part of the US.  On the work side of things, I had three wall-to-wall days of meetings, presentations and tours.  It sounds like a killer, but that kind of intensity can be a real buzz as long as it is for a reasonable period of time.  I love explaining all the exciting chemistry I've been doing to people who've never seen it before, and being able to discuss the ins and outs of actual molecules with people who see the world in the same way is fantastic.  The only minus is that I'm a terrible jet-laggard, so shortly after lunch things began to take on a distinctly surreal cast.  I'd just got used to it and was waking up at normal time....when it was time to go home again!

Last Sunday, I put on my NOISE hat, or actually t-shirt, and trained off to Cambridge to be a guest on "The Naked Scientist" radio show. Dodgy though this may sound, the only all I was asked to bare was the all I knew about catalytic convertors.  How catalytic acitvity is like trying to get to the beach, how many football pitches you could cover with the surface area of a catalytic convertor, what quantum magic makes platinum such a good catalyst.  In the studio, I was snuggled up to the microphone with a fellow guest who talked about his revolutionary new fuel cells where enzymes replace platinum as the catalyst.  We had questions about the ice-caps melting and catalytic hair dying, and in the quiz someone phoned in to suggest the air we breathe is mostly carbon moxoxide.  Being a live show, I thought it would never come back to haunt me, but, no, there's an MP3 which all my friends have downloaded from the website.  Never mind, it was great fun to do and maybe this will give them a clue what I spend my waking hours doing!

Can you believe that some people actually ask me what's so exciting about doing science?  This blog is for anyone who might ever have wondered that, because today I have the answer.  Today I made a new chemical which has never been seen before on this planet.  Not only that, but it is a type of chemical that everyone assured me was impossible to make, before I made it.  And of course, it's a useful chemical, that will be tested out in all sorts of new catalysts.  Added to which, the way I made it, the only bi-product of the reaction is water, making it one of the greenest chemical reactions there is.  I tell you, when I saw that the reaction had worked, when the cloudy suspension turned into a glowing orange solution, I was dancing round the lab in delight and amazement.  This is a fantastic discovery, and the start of a whole new project. 

The useful thing about having studied science in half the countries in Europe is that you end up with friends all over the place who are always after you to drop in on their country for a visit whenever you have holiday.  This time it was Basel in Switzerland where I did the reserach for my Ph.D for three and a half years.  Apart from the airport, which is now all shiney and modern, very little has changed in Basel in the (oh gosh!) seven years since I studied there.  The friend I was visiting took me round all the old haunts: pubs, cafes, and the bakery at Schifflaende which does the best pain au chocolat in the city.  The highpoint was going swimming in the Rhine, which is a favourite activity of Baselers on baking days in summer.  The current is so strong, you don't even need to swim, you just drift downstream with the cathedral, the statue "Helvetia", and the houses, shops and cafes going past you on either side.  Bliss.

Most of this week was spent up at Nottingham where I went to the Johnson Matthey (JM) student colloquium.  The idea here is that all the students sponsored by JM, together with their academic and industrial supervisors, get together for several days to present what they've been doing and discuss the research in complete confidentiality.  There were talks and poster sessions, debates about the future of the industry and academia, all liberally aided by good food, wine and quite a lot of Smirnoff Ice.  It was the kind of few days where ideas sparkle and breed in darkened lecture theatres and new projects come together at midnight in the bar.  Needless to say, I came back with more ideas than I have hands to carry out, but it was great fun.