December 2012
Qian Li wins prize for best talk at the RSC Electroanalytical Group Student Meeting
The Postgraduate Meeting of the Electroanalytical Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry was held at Birkbexk College on December 6th. Qian Li (3rd year D.Phil. student) shared the prize for the best talk for her lecture on the electrochemistry of quinones.

October 2012
Group moves into new Lab Facility
Early October 2012 saw the Compton Group move from the PTCL, formerly the 'Physical Chemistry Laboratory, into newly and specially refurbished labs occupying the ground floor of the Rodney Porter Building, adjacent to the PTCL. The building of the PCL was completed seventy years ago in 1942 and it is sadly is no longer suitable for competitive activity in modern research in the areas of interest to the Group.
The new space brings all the Group together in one single area equipped with excellent labs and write up areas. The Electrochemistry Communications journal office is contained within this space too.
The move, after 27 years in the P(T)CL unearthed many interesting materials associated with various group alumni including original heated electrodes made by Frank Marken (now Professor at Bath) and calcite flow cells fabricated by Patrick Unwin (Professor at Warwick) together with some original lab books of Justin Gooding (New South Wales), Jay Wadhawan (Hull) and Greg Wildgoose (UEA)! Very interesting reading!
We look forward to significantly enhanced research activity in the immediate future as a result of this transforming move!

http://compton.chem.ox.ac.uk/index.php?title=laboratory

September 2012
Richard Compton Receives 2011 Sir George Stokes Award
Richard Compton received his 2011 Sir George Stokes Award and Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry at the IUPAC sponsored IOPOC Meeting on Physical Organic Chemistry at Durham on September 9th. He gave a lecture entitled 'Electroanaysis with nanoparticles and nanotubes'.
http://www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/Awards/SirGeorgeStokesAward/Index.asp

September 2012
Prof. Compton Lectures at ELECTROCHEM2012, Dublin
Richard Compton presented a plenary lecture entitled 'Simulation of voltammetry: some recent progress' at the ELECTROCHEM2012 meeting held in Dublin and organised by Professor Mike Lyons between September 2nd and 4th. Other presentations from the group were made by Ms Ying Wang and Dr Batchelor-McAuley.
http://www.rsc.org/ConferencesAndEvents/conference/alldetails.cfm?evid=110601

August 2012
Prof. Compton Delivers Lectures in China
Richard Compton visited China over the period of August 2nd - 17th staying primarily at the CAS Insititute of Physical Sciences, Hefei, Anhui where he is CAS Visiting Professor and was hosted by Professor Xing-Jiu Huang, formerly a post-doc in the group. Xing-Jiu is now engaged in pioneering work on the innovative design of surface modified electrodes for electroanalysis and leads a large, vibrant and successful group. Other visits were made to various notable electrochemical centres - Nanjing University (Academician Hong-Yuan Chen, Professor Xing-Hua Xia, Professor Jun-Jie Zhu and Professor Huangxian Ju) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing where both the Institutes of Physics (Professor Qing-bo Meng) and of Chemistry (Academician Li-Jun Wan and Professor Lanqun Mao) provided generous hosptility and a warm welcome. In addition a short visit to the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry was undertaken. Lectures on 'Electrochemistry using nanoparticles' were presented at all four locations

July 2012
Post-doctoral Position in Nanoelectrochemistry Available
Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Assistant to work under the supervision of Professor Richard Compton on a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust until 30 June 2014. The project is entitled ‘Nanoelectrochemistry’.
You should either already have a PhD in Chemistry or a relevant subject area, or have submitted your thesis prior to taking up the post. The post will be based in the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QZ.
Only applications received before midday on 17 August 2012 can be considered. You will be required to upload a supporting statement and CV as part of your online application. The University of Oxford is an Athena SWAN bronze award holder. Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and ethnic minority candidates, who are under-represented in Chemistry research posts in Oxford. To apply for this role and for further details, including a job description and selection criteria, please see the link below.
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/jobs.asp

June 2012
Conference 1st Prize
1st year D.Phil. student Ying Wang has won the prize for the best talk at the 'Great Western' Electrochemistry Graduate Students meeting held at Bath University, June 18th, 2012. She is pictured with Professor Frank Marken, conference organiser and host.

May 2012
Compton Group Publish Top 10 Article in Analyst
A recent article titled 'Electrochemical determination of glutathione: a review' by John C. Harfield, Christopher Batchelor-McAuley, and Richard G. Compton published in the RSC journal 'Analyst' was one of the top 10 most viewed articles for the month of April.
http://blogs.rsc.org/an/2012/05/23/top-ten-most-accessed-articles-in-april/

May 2012
Compton Group Article is 'most read' in Analytical Chemistry
A recent review article titled 'New Electrochemical Methods' by Christopher Batchelor-McAuley, Edmund J. F. Dickinson, Neil V. Rees, Kathryn E. Toghill, and Richard G. Compton, published in the ACS journal 'Analytical Chemistry' was one of the top 10 most viewed articles for the the first quarter of 2012.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac2026767

April 2012
Compton Group Publish Top 10 Article in Analyst
A recent article titled 'One-step synthesis of fluorescein modified nano-carbon for Pd(ii) detection via fluorescence quenching' by Janjira Panchompoo, Leigh Aldous, Matthew Baker, Mark I. Wallace and Richard G. Compton published in the RSC journal 'Analyst' was one of the top 10 most viewed articles for the month of March.
http://blogs.rsc.org/an/2012/04/25/top-ten-most-accessed-articles-in-march/

March 2012
Yige Zhou receives Chinese Government Award
Ms Yige Zhou has been awarded a highly competitive 2011 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad by the China Scholarship Council (CC). These are awarded to students who have realised an 'outstanding performance in their PhD studies'; no more than 500 awards are granted annually worldwide.

23rd January 2012
'Understanding Voltammetry - Problems and Solutions' by Richard Compton, Chris Batchelor-McAuley and Edmund Dickinson
A new book, 'Understanding Voltammetry - Problems and Solutions by Richard Compton, Chris Batchelor-McAuley and Edmund Dickinson' has been published by World Scientific. An overview of the book and the complete first chapter are available at the World Scientific website linked below.
The field of electrochemical measurement, with respect to thermodynamics, kinetics and analysis, is widely recognised but the subject can be unpredictable to the novice, even if they have a strong physical and chemical background, especially if they wish to pursue quantitative measurements. Accordingly, some significant experiments are, perhaps wisely, never attempted, while the literature is sadly replete with flawed attempts at rigorous voltammetry.
This book presents problems and worked solutions for a wide range of theoretical and experimental subjects in the field of voltammetry. The reader is assumed to have knowledge up to a Master's level of physical chemistry, but no exposure to electrochemistry in general, or voltammetry in particular, is required. The problems included range in difficulty from senior undergraduate to research level, and develop important practical approaches in voltammetry.
The problems presented in the earlier chapters focus on the fundamental theories of thermodynamics, electron transfer and diffusion. Voltammetric experiments and their analysis are then considered, including extensive problems on both macroelectrode and microelectrode voltammetry. Convection, hydrodynamic electrodes, homogeneous kinetics, adsorption and electroanalytical applications are discussed in the later chapters, as well as problems on two rapidly developing fields of voltammetry: weakly supported media and nanoscale electrodes.
There is huge interest in the experimental procedure of voltammetry at present, and yet no dedicated question and answer book with exclusive voltammetric focus exists, in spite of the inherent challenges of the subject. This book aims to fill that niche.
http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemistry/p783.html