We’re really happy to announce that we’ve just been awarded a small grant from the John Fell Fund, Oxford University’s main internal funding source. It will help to buy a fancy syringe pump, which will significantly improve control over our crystallisation reactions.
When crystallisation reactions happen quickly at room temperature, the order and rate at which you add reagents can be critical to achieving high purity materials, uniform particle sizes and even the desired material in the first place. A pump will not only allow us to quantify the effect of different rates, but also allow us to change reaction conditions like concentration and pH in a controlled manner in-situ.
If successful, the work will be proof-of-concept for bigger and better things: pump priming, literally!
