Dr Mark Moloney Wins Times Higher Education Award
21st October 2009
Dr Mark Moloney of the University of Oxford’s Chemistry Department has received The Times Higher Education Serendipity Award, celebrating the unexpected outcomes of research. While researching how penicillin is made, he discovered that a similar process could be used to discourage dye migration in plastics.
At a recent Oxford University Innovation Society dinner, Dr Mark Moloney described the early work, which eventually led to the formation of a company Oxford Advanced Surfaces with the help of Oxford University Innovation.
Dr Mark Moloney
“The notion that penicillin research might have an immediate impact on polymer chemistry seemed ridiculous,” he explained. “We persevered…and by 1998 had established that it was indeed possible to modify the surface of many organic polymers and inorganic materials to introduce colour using a simple chemical process; this was unprecedented.
“Although we initially focussed on colouring, principally because it gave an immediate initial indication of success, we had it in mind to design a process that would enable introduction of other types of functionality.
“[The process] could be used to incorporate not only colour but biocidal, fluorescent, adhesive, and pH sensing effects onto polymers which would normally be considered too inert to allow such modification.”
A year after its foundation in 2006, Oxford Advanced Surfaces listed on the AIM market and now employs 17 people.
