His presentation was on the 'Investigation of viscosity in ionic liquids', a project which he has been working on with scientists from Collaborative Computational Project 5 (CCP5) at STFC's Daresbury Laboratory.
Masahiro went to the Daresbury Laboratory to learn the science and art of molecular modelling. Under the supervision of Professor Ilian Todorov and Dr Vlad Sokhan, he was able to gain valuable experience and knowledge in modelling methodology. In his research with ionic liquids*, Masahiro used DL_POLY, a molecular dynamics software suite, developed by Professor Todorov's group at Daresbury through CCP5.
Dr Sokhan imparted knowledge and know-how through one-to-one training, enabling Masahiro to apply advanced simulation methods to ionic liquids, giving him first-hand experience of DL_POLY's capability and setting milestones for his research.
This helped Masahiro (pictured below with Dr Patricia Hunt from Imperial College) to give a confident and entertaining presentation of his work at the MRes Symposium.
The MRes students competed to give the best talk and were assessed by judges from both academia and industry against pre-defined criteria, including quality of slides and figures, pacing of the presentation, ability to explain clearly and concisely, how engaging the speaker was, and their ability to answer questions well.
Masahiro is delighted to have won the prize, and thanked his tutors for their guidance and support.
He said, "Thanks to the support from Daresbury Lab I have learned how to use the DL_POLY software, from generating input files to analysing the computed results. I started by learning about Linux shell, commands and directory structure before going on to the more advanced work with atomistic models, equations of motion and electrostatic interactions."
He added, “These new skills enabled me to understand the properties of materials, which were difficult to study experimentally, and will enable me to design and create novel materials in my future work."
Masahiro is continuing his MRes studies within the Hunt Research Group at Imperial College, under the supervision of Dr Patricia Hunt and Professor George Jackson.
Notes:
*Ionic liquids are a new type of solvent with many benefits to industry. For example, industrial machinery might run at a very high temperature, causing lubricants to boil off or chemically react with steel components. Ionic liquids remain stable and unreactive, so can enable devices to run at a wider range of temperatures. (Source: Hunt Research Group)
CCP5 is the Collaborative Computational Project for computer simulation of condensed phase materials at length scales spanning from atomistic to mesoscopic levels. It is one of the many collaborative projects supported by CoSeC.
