Andy Cooper obtained his Ph.D at the University of Nottingham in 1994 for the study of organometallic reaction mechanisms. He then held an 1851 Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, working on polymerization reactions and phase transfer processes in supercritical fluids (1995–1997). He next held a Ramsay Memorial Research Fellowship at the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis in Cambridge, working on heterogeneous polymerizations in supercritical CO2 (1997–1999). He joined the University of Liverpool in January 1999 as a Royal Society University Research Fellow, where he now holds a personal chair. He is the founding Director of the Centre for Materials Discovery (established in 2007) and was a cofounder of a spin-out company, IOTA NanoSolutions, in 2005. He was Head of Chemistry and then Head of the School of Physical Sciences in the period 2007–2011. In addition to research in polymer chemistry, he has interests in crystal engineering, colloid science, and chemical problems related to energy.
Please follow the link for further information on Andy’s research group and his recent paper published in Polymer Chemistry.
What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?
The constant albeit small chance of discovering something really remarkable and important, this is what makes research so exciting.
What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper?
We published our first paper on conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) in 2007 (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 2007, 46, 8574). There have been several nice follow-up studies since, but the most interesting have exploited the combination of extended conjugation and porosity in these materials. For example, one of the best papers in this area was published last year by Prof. Donglin Jiang (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 2011, 50, 8753) describing supercapacitive CMPs that rival nanocarbons. For these applications it will be important to control both porosity and also physical properties related to conjugation, such as optical band gap or charge mobility. In this new study, we set out to synthesize triazine analogues of our first CMP materials. We found that the materials, while amorphous, were ‘isoreticular’ in the sense that changing from benzene to triazine nodes does not affect the microporosity. The triazine CMPs, however, showed slightly higher CO2 uptakes and optical band gaps that can be varied by copolymerization. Variation of band gap could be useful in applications like photocatalysis. Prof. Wenbin Lin at UNC has shown that related materials are good photocatalysts.
Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?
I’ve found that the RSC journals have fast publication times and good editing and refereeing. I’m sure Polymer Chemistry will not be an exception.
In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?
2012 ACS meetings (both Spring and Fall), Pott Shrigley, and of course Warwick 2012.
How do you spend your spare times?
I haven’t had time for ‘hobbies’ as such for years, but I did recently take up mountain biking. Perhaps this signifies a mid-life crisis…
Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?
A stunt man. You get to live in a trailer.
