Teaching and Research

Consultancy in patent intelligence

This was a very exciting period indeed. In physics, major discoveries, such as high temperature superconductivity were made. In chemistry the C60 molecule, buckminsterfullerene, was discovered and synthesised. In biotech, inventions included the polymerase chain reaction and genetic fingerprinting was demonstrated. The personal computer hit the market revolutionising, amongst other things, scientific data capture. And all of these things and more impacted my work during the 1980'sThere… Show more This was a very exciting period indeed. In physics, major discoveries, such as high temperature superconductivity were made. In chemistry the C60 molecule, buckminsterfullerene, was discovered and synthesised. In biotech, inventions included the polymerase chain reaction and genetic fingerprinting was demonstrated. The personal computer hit the market revolutionising, amongst other things, scientific data capture. And all of these things and more impacted my work during the 1980'sThere were some high profile and controversial scientific issues too, such as the cold fusion story and the homepathic memory effect of water.I had studied chemistry physics and maths, and I never got paid for it, but the there I was in a metallurgy department, working in a subject area I had never studied and getting a monthly salary!At the beginning I got my hands on some interesting bits of kit, scanning electron microscopes, transmission electron microscopes, the related electron probe microanalysers. At first I was involved in producing astounding (to me) images of matter at the m and nm scale (nearly). But one of my early assignments was to set up a backscattered electron (BSE) detector bolted on to an SEM. BSE involves a different contrast mechanism to "conventional" SEM imaging - it's dependent to a first approximation on the effective atomic number of the scattering material. I developed a BSE calibration standard, and I also showed experimentally that BSE intensity is actually dependent on the electron density of the scattering material, and not the atomic number. Show less

The physical properties of carbon fibre reinforced composite materials are strongly dependent on the fibre - matrix interaction. For a given matrix this interaction is mediated by the surface chemistry of the fibre. I studied the surface chemistry of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibres by temperature programmed desorption (TPD), and the desorbed species were detected by an electron impact ionisation, magnetic sector mass spectrometer (EIMS). The study was supervised by Bill Watt OBE FRS who… Show more The physical properties of carbon fibre reinforced composite materials are strongly dependent on the fibre - matrix interaction. For a given matrix this interaction is mediated by the surface chemistry of the fibre. I studied the surface chemistry of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibres by temperature programmed desorption (TPD), and the desorbed species were detected by an electron impact ionisation, magnetic sector mass spectrometer (EIMS). The study was supervised by Bill Watt OBE FRS who originally developed oriented PAN fibres. This work was carried out in the department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering (as it then was), and this period catalysed my interest in surface analytical techniques and in carbon based materials. Show less

Teaching chemistry 'O' level to part time students, mainly from industry. My class had not had much success in public exams in chemistry previously, but I am happy and proud to say that I was able to help them finally pass their chemistry 'O' levels.