Wim Thielemans
Lecturer in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering [DICE], Faculty of Engineering
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Biography
Wim Thielemans obtained his Master in Chemical Engineering degree (Magna Cum Laude) from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) in 1999. He worked for a couple of months as a plant engineer in the glass fibre production facility of Bayer in Antwerp, Belgium, before starting his PhD at the University of Delaware (Newark, DE, USA) under the supervision of Professor Richard P. Wool. He obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2004, working on the development of polymers and composites from renewable materials such as cellulose, lignin and plant oil triglycerides. He then moved to the Ecole Française de Papeterie et des Industries Graphiques at the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (Grenoble, France) for postdoctoral research on the surface modification of cellulose and starch nanoparticles. Wim obtained a Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellowship in 2005 to continue his postdoctoral research. He ended this position early to take up his current Lecturer in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering postion at the University of Nottingham.
Research Summary
My research fits into the grand idea of developing materials from renewable sources. These renewable sources include cellulose, starch, lignin, and plant oil (triglycerides).
I currently focus on the targeted surface modification of monocrystalline nanoparticles derived from cellulose and starch for specific applications. The cellulose-derived nanoparticles are obtained as rigid rods (also called whiskers), while the starch particles are in the shape of platelets. The size of these nanoparticles varies with the source material. My research aims to modify these particles at the surface to render there surfaces active, environment-responsive and/or functional. This is done by polymerisation from the surface, or direct grafting of small and large molecules at the surface. These modified particles will find applications in drug delivery systems, water treatment systems, nanomaterials, among others.
Selected Publications
LIEW, SY, THIELEMANS, W and WALSH, DA, 2010. Electrochemical Capacitance Of Nanocomposite Polypyrrole/Cellulose Films Journal Of Physical Chemistry C. 114(41), 17926-17933 EYLEY, S and THIELEMANS, W, 2011. Imidazolium Grafted Cellulose Nanocrystals For Ion Exchange Applications Chemical Communications. 47(14), 4177-4179
Past Research
My past research has covered the rheological behaviour of polymer melts in extensional and shear flow, the use of plant oil triglycerides in free-radically polymerisable thermosetting polymers, lignin modification and its use in thermosetting polymers, natural fibre composites and the surface modification of natural fibres, carbon nanotube composites, and the derivation of cellulose and starch nanocrystals and their surface modification.