Scientists awarded prizes from the Royal Society of Chemistry

Professors Junwang Tang, David Scanlon and Vijay Chudasama have been named the winners of three Royal Society of Chemistry prizes recognising excellence in the chemical sciences. Separately, two projects involving UCL - MagLiB, which speeds up charging times for electric vehicle batteries, and Finden, which uses machine learning to better understand a material's structure - have been shortlisted as finalists in the Society's Emerging Technologies Competition for early stage companies and academic entrepreneurs. Among the individual award-winners, Professor Tang (UCL Chemical Engineering) won the Corday-Morgan Prize for the discovery of efficient photocatalysts that can convert solar energy into renewable fuels - an important step towards making society sustainable. Professor Tang said: "The 2021 Corday-Morgan Prize recognises not only my achievements but more importantly my group members' contribution to renewable fuel synthesis, as such novel results are a collective contribution from many talented students and postdoctoral researchers working in my group over the past decades. "I am also very grateful to the RSC as the prize will encourage more researchers to concentrate on this challenging frontier topic and contribute to a sustainable economy and low carbon society." His research focuses on the discovery of efficient photocatalysts for renewable fuel synthesis and chemical recycling and chemical systems, helping to increase the supply of renewable energy and protect the environment.