Chemistry at Durham
The Department of Chemistry is one of the strongest in this flourishing university, and
attracts high-calibre students at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It is highly
rated both in research (5*A in RAE 2001) and teaching (excellent). There are
currently 29 permanent research group leaders, 90 Ph.D. students and about 47
postdoctoral and research fellows.
The Department teaches both a 4-year (M.Chem.) and a 3-year (B.Sc.) degree in
Single Honours Chemistry and contributes to 3-year and 4-year degrees in Natural
Sciences, with named routes for example, in Chemistry and Biology and in Chemistry
and Mathematics. Additional students take some of their modular courses in
Chemistry. The current first year has 120 students reading Chemistry (mean entry
AAB) as their main subject with another 60 also reading Chemistry through the
Natural Sciences degree course (entry 210; offer AAA) and 45 reading Molecular
Biology and Biochemistry. Each year about 50 students graduate with an M.Chem.
degree, 25 or so take a B.Sc. in Chemistry and at least 25 graduate with a Natural
Sciences degree naming Chemistry.
The Department has undertaken a sustained building and refurbishment programme
over the last 15 years. A large undergraduate laboratory opened in 1997, and 3 new
research laboratories (ca. 450 m2) were established simultaneously. A successful JIF
bid (£5.2M) for a Centre for Multidisciplinary Condensed Matter Chemistry provided a
new building that was completed in October 2001. At the end of 2004, an additional
1350m2 of laboratory space was refurbished from SRIF funds, to support research in
Bioactive Chemistry. In addition, a physical chemistry teaching laboratory is currently
being refurbished.
The Department has excellent centrally resourced NMR, MS and analytical services,
which are located in a dedicated suite of laboratories. In addition we have a worldclass crystallography service. The Centre for Multidisciplinary Condensed Matter
Chemistry houses new equipment including environmental scanning electron and
atomic force microscopes, an ESR spectrometer, a combined SAXS/WAXS
instrument, scanning electrochemical surface microscopy equipment, a MALDI-TOF
mass spectrometer, an ion-beam analysis instrument, an NMR nano-probe for
combinatorial chemistry, a Stelar Spinmaster relaxometer and a wide-bore 500 MHz
NMR spectrometer dedicated to work on solids.
The Department attracts considerable support from the Research Councils and
industry (ca. £4 million per year) and has a high publication rate (>550 articles over
the last 3 years). During 2003, it had the highest listed EPSRC grant income per
head of any Chemistry department in the UK. A summary of Departmental activities
and staff is given on the Web site http://www.dur.ac.uk/chemistry.
The Department
Research in chemistry at Durham is led by the staff listed below, assisted by
postdoctoral workers and visiting scientists.
About 55 other staff - two
administrators, senior experimental officers, senior research officers, technicians,
secretaries and laboratory staff - support our teaching and research.
Teaching is modular and interdisciplinary, although for convenience it is organised
mostly on a sectional basis. The Sections are Physical Chemistry and Chemical
Physics (led by Prof. J.M. Hutson), Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry (Prof. M.R.
Bryce) and Structural, Inorganic and Materials chemistry (Prof. J.A.K. Howard). Much
of the research in the Department straddles conventional borderlines and involves
inter-sectional or inter-departmental collaborations. Indeed, the integrated and
collaborative nature of the Department is one of its strengths. One important thrust
of our work is the synthesis of new types of compounds and materials, whether
molecular, macromolecular, extended-lattice or composite, and their characterisation
by a range of structural, spectroscopic and analytical techniques. Other areas of
particular interest include the following:
-
supramolecular, heterocyclic and macrocyclic chemistry, notably the
design, synthesis and application of ligands tailored to bind/transport or
respond to specific cations and anions;
-
fluoro-organic chemistry, particularly
biologically active substances;
-
organic synthesis and the development of synthetic methodology; biotransformations and synthetic ion channels
-
biomolecular chemistry, including the design and synthesis of modified
oligonucleotides and peptides and their biological function
-
theoretical and computational chemistry, including the determination of
intermolecular forces, chemical reaction dynamics, materials simulation,
and density-functional theory;
-
molecular beam studies of chemical reactions and laser spectroscopy;
-
plasma chemistry and surface chemistry;
-
solution-state kinetic and mechanistic studies, including time-resolved
luminescence, studies of sensitisers and emissive d block and f-block
complexes;
-
solid-state, colloid and surface chemistry, including structural
characterisation by diffraction methods at ambient or low temperatures;
-
polymer synthesis and characterisation, particularly of high-performance
specialist materials and functional polymers, including thin film
organisation and dynamics;
-
synthetic and structural inorganic/organometallic chemistry, including
cluster and polymer work;
-
homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, including catalyst
development, mechanistic studies and the study of surface chemistry;
-
the development and application of spectroscopic techniques, notably
solid-state NMR, vibrational and photoelectron spectroscopy;
-
inorganic and organic materials with novel optical, electronic or thermal
properties;
heterocycles,
polymers
and
The scale of our activities in these areas is reflected in published work and research
funds raised (approaching twice the national average).
Equipment and Infrastructure
A special feature of our research is the battery of techniques being developed or in
use in research groups in the department. For example, one group has a triplechannel Chemagnetics CMX 200 NMR spectrometer dedicated to work on solids with
magic-angle spinning, a Varian UnityPlus 300 solid-state (CPMAS) NMR
spectrometer, a custom built 250 MHz CPMAS instrument, a custom-built 60 MHz
system for NMR relaxation studies of solids, as well as a new 500 MHz spectrometer
and access to unique 600 MHz and 800 MHz solid-state NMR spectrometers sited
elsewhere. Another group has built a unique research X-ray diffractometer for ultralow temperature work (APD “Displex” cryorefrigerator mounted on a Huber
goniometer and housed at a rotating anode) and has three Bruker-SMART CCD area
detector diffractometers for accelerated data collection. We also have four powder
diffractometers, two dedicated to non-ambient studies. Our growing range of surface
science facilities includes an atomic force microscope, several UHV chambers
equipped for ESCA-XPS, AES, ISS, LEED, IR, TPD, BET and emission
spectroscopy, and rigs to allow reactions at working surfaces to be monitored by
FTIR spectroscopy and Raman microscopy.
A particularly strong example of the interdisciplinary approach to instrumentation is
the range of equipment available for synthetic materials and macromolecular
chemistry research groups. These include MALDI-TOF-MS, a stress-controlled
rheometer, small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (incorporating grazing incidence
and reflectometry), electrochemical surface microscopy, ESM/AFM, and (unique to
UK Chemistry) an ion-beam analysis accelerator allowing Rutherford back-scattering,
elastic recoil detection and nuclear reaction analysis of a very wide range of
materials.
Chemical structures and molecular
dynamics are probed by a range of
spectroscopic instruments. These include high-resolution FT-NMR spectrometers for
solutions (new Varian Inova 500 (2), 400(2), 300, 200 and 65 MHz instruments).
Four mass spectrometers are dedicated to departmental research work (Micromass
Trio, two LC-MS and a new Thermo FT-ICR 7T system (switchable MALDI/ESMS)
being acquired in late 2004). We have several UV-visible, UV-VIS-NIR and pulsed
and steady-state luminescence spectrometers and three NQR spectrometers
operating at fields up to 250 MHz. Specialist spectroscopic needs are catered for by
several FTIR spectrometers and a Jasco 810 CD spectrometer. Reaction kinetics
are studied in the millisecond range using Hi-Tech and Applied Photophysics
stopped-flow spectrometers and a temperature-jump spectrometer.
The Department is well set up for all branches of synthetic chemistry, particularly for
work with macromolecules, volatile and/or reactive compounds, with modern
laboratories, elemental analytical facilities, glass-blowing, mechanical and electronic
workshops, autoclaves for high-pressure work in a separate, purpose-designed
building, and a special facility for a high-intensity Co -ray source for radical
reactions.
The Department is very well equipped with computing facilities, including large
numbers of PCs, Macs and Unix workstations. There is a 48-processor Departmental
supercomputer. In addition, the University provides Unix timesharing and numbercrunching facilities as well as classrooms of networked PCs. The University is
currently investing £1.5M of SRIF funding in a new multidisciplinary numbercrunching facility. The Department is fully wired for high-speed networking over
copper and fibre-optic cables, and there are excellent network connections to
external sites. In-house support for IT is provided by an experimental officer and two
technicians.
Centre for Bioactive Chemistry
Opening in early 2005, the new centre will occupy 1350m2 of space on the second
floor of the Chemistry building and will contain a suite of custom built bio-research
labs, including a category 2 sterile handling and culture facility, temperature
controlled rooms, large laboratories for synthetic chemistry and dedicated
chromatography and microscopy/spectroscopy suites. The Centre will house at least
three research groups from the Department of Chemistry together with groups from
Biology (Prof Robert Edwards) and Engineering (Prof Tony Unsworth). The proximity
of these groups will facilitate interdisciplinary research programmes in biological
chemistry and bioengineering with several joint projects already underway in the
fields of bioimaging, redox biochemistry, biocatalysis and protein engineering.
Further joint research programmes are currently under development with members of
the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (Grade 5 Department) where there
are specific research strengths in stem cell and developmental biology, bio-imaging
and microscopy, neuroscience and plant and microbial biochemistry
(http://www.dur.ac.uk/biological.sciences/).
Members of Staff, 1 January 2005
Head of Department
(to 01.08.06)
Professors
D. Parker, D.Phil. Oxon., FRS
Readers
M.R. Crampton, Ph.D., D.Sc. London
K.B. Dillon, D.Phil. Oxon.
J.S.O. Evans, D.Phil. Oxon.
J.W. Steed Ph.D. UCL
A. Whiting, Ph.D. Newcastle
Senior Lecturers
A. Beeby, Ph.D. East Anglia
P.G. Steel, D.Phil. Oxon.
M.R. Wilson, Ph.D. Sheffield
G. Sandford, Ph.D. Dunelm
Lecturers and
Research Fellows
J.P.S. Badyal, Ph.D. Cantab.
M.R. Bryce, D.Phil. York
J.A.K. Howard, D.Phil. Oxon., D.Sc. Bristol, FRS
J.M. Hutson, D.Phil. Oxon.
T.B. Marder, Ph.D. UCLA
K. Prassides D.Phil. Oxon
C. D. Bain, PhD, Harvard (01.09.05)
N.R. Cameron, Ph.D. Strathclyde
N. Clarke, Ph.D. Sheffield
K.S. Coleman, Ph. D. Leicester (RS-URF)
S.J. Cooper, Ph.D. Bristol
R.S. Dickins, Ph.D. Dunelm (fixed term)
P.W. Dyer, Ph.D. Dunelm
D.R.W. Hodgson, Ph.D. Cantab.
P. Hodgkinson, D.Phil. Oxon.
A.K. Hughes, D.Phil. Oxon.
E. Khosravi, Ph.D. Sussex (Research Fellow)
P.J. Low, Ph.D. Adelaide
J.M. Sanderson, Ph.D. Leeds
D.J. Tozer, Ph.D. Cantab.
J.A.G. Williams, Ph.D. Dunelm.
E. Wrede, Ph.D. Bielefeld
AM O’Donoghue, PhD, UCD
Research
Professors
K. Wade, Ph.D. Nottingham, FRS
R.D. Chambers, Ph.D., D.Sc. Dunelm., FRS
R.K. Harris, Ph.D., D.Sc. Cantab
W.J. Feast, Ph.D. Birmingham, FRS
Senior Research
Officers
A.E. Goeta, Ph.D. La Plata
R. Kataky, Ph.D. Newcastle
A.M. Kenwright, Ph.D. East Anglia
Senior Experimental
Officers
M. Garner, D. Phil. York
L.R. Hutchings, Ph.D. Sheffield
M. Jones, Ph.D. Leicester
A. Royston, Ph.D. Leeds
R.L. Thompson, Ph.D. Hull
Administrators
E.J.F. Ross, Ph.D. Newcastle
H.M. Hull, Ph.D. Nottingham (0.6)
C. Markwell (0.4)