Year 4 student CHEN Meng-Fu, under the tutelage of Prof Richard WONG, received the CRISP award for his computational study on the use of ionic liquids as corrosion inhibitors.

He used density functional theory-based methods to model the corrosion inhibition mechanism of ionic liquids, which shed light on the nature of their adsorption process. This opens the door to the development of new sustainable corrosion inhibitors, which address the environmentally unfriendly impacts of conventional corrosion inhibitors. Green corrosion inhibitors such as ionic liquids do not contain toxic compounds and provide a sustainable alternative.