Lizzie Ashton, third year Chemistry PhD student, was crowned 1st place winner in the Royal Society of Chemistry Twitter Poster Competition in the #RSCEnergy category.
The annual Twitter conference was this year held on March 3 and members of the scientific community from around the world take part by tweeting their research and sparking a debate on their chosen subject.
The topic of Lizzie’s poster was hydrogen storage materials for mobile fuel cell applications, such as cars, drones and chargers. Lizzie was able to chat with other participants over the social media platform and share her expert knowledge on the area of research.
She shared with others how highly compressed gas cylinders, which are very heavy and take up a lot of space, are currently used in hydrogen automotive. Lizzie uses solid state hydrogen storage materials to store much more hydrogen in less volume and weight, making energy storage a lot more practical for smaller portable devices. The hydrogen produced can be used directly by fuel cells to produce energy, where the only waste product is water.
Speaking about the digital conference, Lizzie said: “I always enjoy taking part in the RSC Poster competition as it is a fun way to present my research, achieving maximum impact. 59 countries took place this year, with 4700 conference attendees.
My poster has received tens of thousands of impressions and thousands of actual engagements. It's by far the best way to get people to engage with your research! I made loads of connections from around the world and have spoken to companies, academics and PhD students researching and working in similar areas to myself. Also, I enjoy making a fun and eye-catching poster, instead of the usual more formal conference posters.
I am absolutely delighted to have won 1st place for the 'Energy and Sustainability' category and I owe a massive thank you to everyone who supported my poster by liking, retweeting or asking questions about my research.”
Last year Lizzie also celebrated success receiving 2nd prize in the #RSCMaterials category and a special commendation for her comic book-inspired poster on High Energy Density Storage.
Check out the hashtag #RSCPoster on Twitter to follow this year’s conference debate.
The RSC described the 2020 conference as ‘incredible’
