• 18:30 - 19:30
• Babbage Lecture Theatre

This talk will introduce a new type of battery electrode that can be recharged directly by light, without the need for external solar cells or external power supplies. These devices may change the way we power off-grid devices and provide a tool to fight energy poverty in developing communities. However, this is an emerging technology that still suffers from tremendous challenges that need to be solved before we can dream of commercialising it. In this talk, I will first discuss the operating principles of light-rechargeable batteries and in particular how they are able to harvest solar energy and store it. Then I will discuss challenges related to the stability of these devices and their light conversion efficiency. Finally, I will give an outlook of the challenges related to the scale-up manufacturing and commercialisation of these systems as well as the role they might play on the long term in fighting energy poverty and climate change.

• 18:30 - 19:30
• Babbage Lecture Theatre

Research in fluid mechanics has long been motivated by the desire to understand the world around us. Biology, in particular, is dominated by transport problems involving fluids, from the diffusion of nutrients and locomotion to flows around plants and the circulatory system of animals. The biological realm has therefore long been a source of inspiration for fluid mechanicians. 

In the 1950s, driven by the desire to understand the locomotion of spermatozoa, G I Taylor - the founder of modern fluid mechanics whose name is associated with this lecture - was the first to carry out a mathematical analysis of locomotion in a fluid. In the spirit of Taylor, I will highlight in this lecture examples where an analysis of fluid motion has lead to novel understanding of biological processes in the realm of cellular motility.