School of Chemistry
 

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Steven Howdle

Head of School of Chemistry, Faculty of Science

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Biography

Steve Howdle was born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England in 1964. He obtained a first degree in Chemistry from Manchester in 1986 and his PhD on "Spectroscopy in Liquefied Noble Gases"from Nottingham in 1989. Steve's research focuses on the utilisation of supercritical carbon dioxide for polymer synthesis, polymer processing and preparation of novel polymeric materials for tissue engineering and drug delivery. He holds a chair at the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham and prior to this held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (1991-1999). He has received the Jerwood-Salters' Environment Award for Green Chemistry (2001); RSC Corday - Morgan Medal and Award (2001); Royal Society - Wolfson Research Merit Award (2003); RSC Interdisciplinary Award (2005); DECHEMA-Award of the Max Buchner Research Foundation (2006) "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the innovative use of supercritical fluids for the synthesis and processing of polymers with a wide range of applications"; and RSC/SCI Macro Group UK Medal (2008).

Teaching Summary

Teaching throughout our undergraduate courses; from the first year laboratories to Group Theory and Symmetry in the second year General Inorganic Course (CHEM2007).

Entrepreneurship for Chemists (CHEM4006) is a module that introduces business, patents, product and industry aspects to our students and challenges them with a Dragon's Den event and a commercial business development task. Experienced industry and business speakers also bring real commercial experience to the course.

I also introduce polymers to our first year students through the course "Frontiers in Chemistry" CHEM1008

I also regularly host final years Masters research projects - a wonderful experience for our students

Research Summary

Professor Howdle's interests lie in the use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a new solvent for polymer synthesis and materials processing. This is an exciting area that has lead to collaboration… read more

Selected Publications

  • CUTAJAR, MICHELLE, BRAOVAC, SUSAN, STOCKMAN, ROBERT A., HOWDLE, STEVEN M. and HARDING, STEPHEN E., 2023. Evaluation of two terpene-derived polymers as consolidants for archaeological wood SCIENTIFIC REPORTS. 13(1),
  • MONAGHAN, OLIVIA R., SKOWRON, STEPHEN T., MOORE, JONATHAN C., PIN-NO, MARIA, KORTSEN, KRISTOFFER, ATKINSON, RACHEL L., KRUMINS, EDUARDS, LENTZ, JOACHIM C., MACHADO, FABRICIO, ONAT, ZEYNEP, BROOKFIELD, ADAM, COLLISON, DAVID, KHLOBYSTOV, ANDREI N., DE FOCATIIS, DAVIDE, IRVINE, DEREK J., TARESCO, VINCENZO, STOCKMAN, ROBERT A. and HOWDLE, STEVEN M., 2022. A self-crosslinking monomer, alpha-pinene methacrylate: understanding and exploiting hydrogen abstraction POLYMER CHEMISTRY. 13(39), 5557-5567
  • PACHECO, ANA A. C., DA SILVA FILHO, ARNALDO F., KORTSEN, KRISTOFFER, HANSON-HEINE, MAGNUS W. D., TARESCO, VINCENZO, HIRST, JONATHAN D., LANSALOT, MURIEL, D'AGOSTO, FRANCK and HOWDLE, STEVEN M., 2021. Influence of structure and solubility of chain transfer agents on the RAFT control of dispersion polymerisation in scCO(2) CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 12(3), 1016-1030
  • LARDER, RYAN R., BENNETT, THOMAS M., BLANKENSHIP, L. SCOTT, FERNANDES, JESUM A., HUSBAND, BETHANY K., ATKINSON, RACHEL L., DERRY, MATTHEW J., TOOLAN, DANIEL T. W., CENTURION, HIGOR A., TOPHAM, PAUL D., GONCALVES, RENATO V., TARESCO, VINCENZO and HOWDLE, STEVEN M., 2021. Porous hollow TiO2 microparticles for photocatalysis: exploiting novel ABC triblock terpolymer templates synthesised in supercritical CO2 POLYMER CHEMISTRY. 12(19), 2904-2913

Current Research

Professor Howdle's interests lie in the use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a new solvent for polymer synthesis and materials processing. This is an exciting area that has lead to collaboration with many other disciplines across engineering, life sciences, food sciences and physics. Steve also has extensive research interests and active links with a wide range of polymer and materials industries.

A major part of his group's research is directed towards multidisciplinary collaborations on clean synthesis of new polymers and new polymeric structures that have been derived from Nature.

School of Chemistry

University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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