Sir Martyn research interest is in Green Chemistry - cleaner ways of making chemicals and materials, and in particular, in the use of environmentally more acceptable solvents. He is also interested in devising processes in continuous flow systems. The lecture will describe some of our latest results, mostly unpublished, which demonstrate that one can derive really quite valuable advantages by carrying out reactions in simple solvents such as ethanol and water. It should be understandable (and entertaining!) for chemists at all levels from first year undergraduate upwards, or really students from any scientific field at all!

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Speaker Profile:

Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff, CBE FRS, is the Foreign Secretary and a Vice-President of the Royal Society, a YouTube superstar, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Nottingham, and an Honorary Professor of Chemistry at Moscow State University in Russia. Martyn's most notable contribution to international science is the fostering of research links between the United Kingdom and Ethiopia, particularly in the field of green chemistry. However, Martyn's worldwide fame perhaps comes from his production of The Periodic Table of Videos, a series of short videos about each of the elements in the Periodic Table of Elements which has inspired viewers worldwide to take up a keener interest in chemistry and science. Martyn's research interests involve the development of novel photochemical methods for the synthesis of antimalarial drugs.