Page 10 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 7
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Pr ofessor
Charlotte Williams
In the award- Like the film, Professor Williams has received many awards.
winning 1967 film Earlier this year she was awarded the 2019 Lord Lewis
The Graduate, Mr. Lectureship in Materials Chemistry by the Chemistry
Department at the University of Cambridge. As part of the
McGuire tells the lectureship, Professor Williams spent a week in Cambridge
fresh out of college delivering a lecture series and meeting with academics in
Benjamin that he chemistry and chemical engineering. She will also receive
wants to “say one the 2018 Macro Group UK Medal at a symposium this
word to [him]. Just November for her “significant and substantial contribution to
Professor Charlotte Williams the development of polymer science”. Macro Group UK, fully
one word”. What known as The Pure and Applied Macromolecular Chemistry
is this single word, which has been Group, is a multidisciplinary group closely affiliated with the
ranked No. 42 in the American Film Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the Society for Chemistry and
Institute’s list of top 100 quotations Industry (SCI), the Institute of Physics (IOP) and the Institute of
from American cinema? “Plastics,” Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3). For Professor Williams,
this prize is a recognition of her team from the beginning of her
Mr. McGuire implores, “there’s a professorship to the present. It is also extra special because
great future in plastics. Think about the winner of the 2018 Macro Group UK Young Researchers
it. Will you think about it?” In the Medal happens to be Dr. Hugo Bronstein, an Oxford Chemistry
52 years since the film premiered, alumnus and one of Professor Williams’s first doctoral students!
plastics have certainly proliferated After completing a PhD studying polyethylenes at Imperial
in our world, from ways life-saving College London, Professor Williams moved to the University
to environmentally damaging. The of Minnesota in the USA as a postdoctoral fellow. She
next stage for plastics is to combine describes her time in Minnesota, a centre for the development
sustainability with utility, and Professor and manufacturing of biodegradable plastics, as “truly
Charlotte Williams is at the forefront transformative”. Inspired by the potential of these materials,
Professor Williams has since created innovative polymers using
of this research. Her leadership in unconventional raw materials and activation methods. Three
the field of plastics research has active areas of research in the Williams group include the use of
been recognised and promoted by a carbon dioxide as a raw material; switch catalysis for controlled
recent five-year Established Career block polymerisation; and the development of biodegradable
Fellowship from the Engineering and polymers.
Physical Sciences Research Council Substituting fossil fuels for waste CO2
(ESPRC). The Williams group will use In a double-pronged approach, research from the Williams
the £1.5 million fellowship to build on group both reduces the use of fossil fuels and turns waste CO2
their current research and investigate into useful material. This is made possible by catalysts which
how to make plastics production activate CO2 to make polymers, allowing a 30-50% decrease in
the use of petrochemical raw material compared to conventional
more environmentally friendly, in methods. The catalysts, consisting of two different metals
collaboration with industry and coordinated by a ring-shaped molecule, are highly efficient
academic partners. even at low pressures of CO2 (1 bar) and tolerate common
contaminants such as water. Currently, the group is investigating
why these bimetallic catalysts are significantly more active than
their monometallic analogues.
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Periodic The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry
