Charl Fj Faul

Biography

Charl F. J. Faul received his PhD in 2000 from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. After working for a year as postdoctoral researcher with Markus Antonietti at the Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Potsdam, Germany), he led an independent research group exploring the principles of ionic self-assembly (ISA) until 2004 at the same institute. He then moved to the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, where he is currently a Senior Lecturer in Materials Chemistry. Research efforts are focussed on the production of complex functional hierarchical materialsbased on ionic self-assembly, guanine biomotifs and oligo(aniline)s with tunable optoelectronic properties. Charl has held a visiting professorship in the Molecular Materials group at the Molecular Materials Group, Helsinki University of Technology, hosted by Prof. Dr. Olli Ikkala (2006 – 2010). He then held a prestigious visiting professorship from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hosted by Prof. Zhixiang Wei, National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, China) in 2012. He was furthermore invited by Prof Xi Zhang (Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China) as visiting international lecturer in 2011 and 2012, and visits Tsinghua on a regular basis. Charl recently (October 2013) was appointed as adjunct professor at the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University. This is a 3-year appointment, which has been extended for an additional 3 years until 2019. He is co-PI and member of the management committee of the £12M EPSRC-funded Bristol Centre for Functional Nanomaterials.

Research Interest

He  lead a multi-disciplinary materials chemistry research group, exploring the design principles and applications of novel functional materials. There is a strong focus on the design, synthesis and application of electroactive aniline-based oligomers and related porous conjugated materials for gas capture and wider energy related applications. There is also a continued and active interest in ionic self-assembly and the production of functional hierarchical supramolecular materials (in collaboration with Ian Manners).