Introduction to me

Hi Everyone my name is Olli and this is my new blog.  Currently I'm 23 years of age, studying for my PhD, engaged and enjoying life.  Also in my free time I like to run, cycle, read watch TV and play video games.

What currently takes up most of my time is studying for my PhD.  I was lucky enough to get into the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) for Hydrogen, Fuel cells and their Technologies which is a joint effort between three top universities (Birmingham, Loughborough and Nottingham).  The aim of the DTC is to train a new generation of scientists in all aspects of hydrogen based power generation due to its potential importance in the future of a low carbon economy. 

I am personally studying at the University of Nottingham and my project involves the investigation into new hydrogen storage materials as this is potentially the most critical area that is holding back the widespread implementation of a hydrogen economy.  Currently hydrogen must be stored in large containers at extremely high pressures to make it usable in applications such as cars but to make a storage container that could be used for automotive applications that has the same capacity and size of a petrol tank, solid state storage must be used.  Currently metal hydrides are the main contender for this use as many of them meet the American Department of Energies storage targets but they also suffer from the problem that it takes a great deal of heat to cause them to release the hydrogen they store.  There are methods for lowering this decomposition temperature and my research will be looking into these different methods.

One of my main interests is gaming.  I've been a keen gamer since I was young but recently I have gotten back into PC gaming.  The reason for this is the purchase of my new gaming rig from PC Specialist.  I've been wanting a decent rig for many years now but lack of funds and moving around year by year while at University has meant that it has not been possible to own one.  Now that I know I will be living in the same place for the next 4 years I finally bit the bullet and splashed a lot of dosh.  My spec is an i7 3770 CPU, Asus P8Z77-V motherboard, 16 GB of Kingston Hyper-X RAM, Palit 2 GB GTX 670, Kingston Hyper-X 120 GB SSD, Seagate Barracuda 2 TB HDD, Spire Gemini CPU cooler, Corsair 850W PSU and an InWin GR-One case.  This rig is capable of playing almost every game at maximum settings at smooth frame rates (perhaps with the exception of Metro 2033 due to poor coding) and has so far been a dream.     

So that's my introduction and I look forward to writing future posts for you to read.