A Little Bit About Me

I live in South London (UK) and work in the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary, University of London. My official title is lecturer in functional materials. I am also an honorary senior research associate in the department of chemistry at University College London.

have a look at my official web page.

When i'm not working I am more than likely playing the guitar, listening to music or having a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

Click the links at the top of the page to navigate around the site.

Feel free to contact me with any queries.

Highlights

Click here to view a video of me talking about elecric field assisted chemical vapour deposition.

New book chapter out. Click here to down load via open access.

Click here to visit The Dreams of Ridiculous Men bandcamp page and buy our delightful music.

New book chapter out. Click here to buy from amazon.

Click here to watch some videos of my latest band "The Dreams of Ridiculous Men" from our debut gig at the Fighting Cocks in Kingston Upon Thames.

Click here to listen to the result of our recent recording session.

Click Here or on the picture above to buy "Intelligent Nanomaterials". This book contains a chapter by me entitled "Thermochromic Thin Films and Nanocomposites for Smart Glazing"

Click here or on the picture above to listen to my bands latest studio effort - In the hours before dawn EP

Click here or on the picture above to see me talking about my work at a conference in Taiwan.

New open access book chapter "Novel Chemical Vapour Deposition Routes to Nanocomposite Thin Films" available here.

My first book has been published! Click here or on the picture above to buy it through Amazon.

ElFiCVD project page coming soon!

23/05/14 A couple of pieces of small news, firstly had a paper come into print in the Journal of Solid State Chemistry, details on the publications page to be updated shortly. It seems according to the university system, i have published over 80 papers! I have also had a couple of book chapters come into press which is always very exciting as well. I am off to the E-MRS meeting in Lille next week to deliver an invited talk on Thermochromic Thin Films. I am also looking forward to this summers Team Binions trip to Thin Films 2014 in China where i will give an invited talk and three of my PhD students will present their work as oral presentations as well.

10/03/2014 A busy couple of weeks lecturing away. Though i am off to Argentina next week for IMCS2014 (International Meeting on Chemical Sensors) which should prove to be a pleasant change. The big news of the past few weeks is that my first PhD student Michael Warwick (piccy below) succesfully defended his PhD thesis. He now moves on to work in the Barreca group at the University of Padova.

27/02/2014 A couple of bits of news. Firstly super big review feature article has been published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, the publications page has been updated. I have also slipped over the 1,000 citations mark which pleases me a great deal. In other news, my band, The Dreams of Ridiculous Men, have just finished recording our debut album. We've still got the final mixes to complete, but so far it is sounding very good indeed. No doubt details will be widly distributed when it is out.

27/01/2014 A belated happy new year! Once again a very busy winter holiday period, mainly spent getting rained on in Cornwall, alas what can be done. Back to work now and back to being even busier once again! Writing continues unabashed, a couple more papers have come into print, pages will be updated as soon as details are available. In other news i've had my first paper to recieve over 100 citations and my H-Index has increased to 18! I am also on target to break the 1,000 citations barrier this year. I'm not really one for metrics but i cannot help but smile at this :-) Have a look at my google scholar profile.

29/11/2013 An absolutely shocking length of time between updates. Jeepers! This is mainly due to the fact that i have been so very very busy. I've been traveling a lot and have only recently returned from a PhD recruitment and research dissemination trip to China. I'm off again in a week or so to a conference in India! In the last few months i have had a couple of new book chapters come into print as well as a brace of papers. The publications page has been updated. Soon there will be more to add as i have had a couple of papers accepted in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, including a comprehensive review article on thermochromic thin films. I also had a video of me talking about my research published on line - you can view it here.

18/06/2013 Oh wow, been a while since an update, apologies for that. However, it has been a very busy time. Since February i've had a further four papers accepted for publication and a couple more come into print. The publications page will be updated accordingly. Just coming to the end of writing an invited review article for a prestigious RSC journal, and next week i'll be headed off to ICMAT'13 to give an invited talk on nanostructured metal oxide thin films.

12/02/2013 Two papers have recently been accepted and another has come into print in the the Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Have updated the publications page accordingly.

08/01/2013 Happy new year! Some great news as a couple of papers come into print and another is accepted. I have updated the publications page accordingly. Nice to have a break from the excitement of work, also good to be back to crack on with more research, more teaching and more service!

10/12/2012 Wow, a busy couple of months with definitely a lot going on. Where to start is a good question. So i have had a couple of papers accepted, one in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A which will be out in the new year and another in Thin Solid Films. As always i will update the publications page when the final versions come into print. In other news i'm looking forward to two book chapters i wrote this year coming into press, you can look at the book titles and information here and here. I have also become involved in a nanodesign project which is good fun and very interesting, you can look at chief nano designer Kaddie's blog here. I am mainly looking forward to the winter break, especially after a long terms worth of teaching and the final of the Binionic pentathlon that ended in glorious victory for me - picture below.

16/08/2012 A busy couple of weeks (as always), the chemistry of materials paper comes into print - Publications page updated. A couple more papers submitted to various journals and i'm just about over the jet lag from my recent trip to Australia! I was also sent a nice piccy of me presenting at the 14th International Meeting on Chemical Sensors which is shown below. I also have the excitement of the next upcoming event in the on going Team Binions Pentahlon this weekend - this time Hawaiian pool.

30/07/2012 Been a very busy six weeks that have seen me travelling to Qatar, Singapore and Australia! I delivered an invited talk at Thin Films 2012 (Singapore) and at the CSIRO Black Mountain Laboratories (Australia). I'm quite glad to be back in the UK all told. I've also had a paper accepted in Chemistry of Materials concerning CVD and Gas Sensing. The publications page will be updated when it comes into print. I'm also pleased to announce that i am joining the editorial boards for several journals: the Open Journal of Energy Efficiency, ISRN Inorganic Chemistry and the International Journal of Composite Materials. I'm also pleased to announce that i was the winner of the recent Team Binions Cowboy Darts event (piccy below), Luz finsihed second and Hazel third.

11/06/2012 A busy month where I delivered a talk at the 14th International Meeting on Chemical Sensors in Nuremberg, Germany. I also visited the labs of Prof. Ralf Moos Group in the University of Bayreuth, marked a pile of exam scripts and even found time to have a weeks holiday down in sunny Cornwall. In this period i've had a couple of papers come into print and have updated the publications page. My band also did some recording and you can listen to the outcome here.

08/05/2012 Exam time is on us once again and I sense that I will be becoming very busy soon! Team Binions mini golf was a triumph (pictures below) with Michael Warwick taking the gold, followed by myself in second place and esteemed alumni Hazel Kitching in third. In other news I have had a paper in Electrochemical Society Transactions come into print, an article published in the magazine Chemistry and Industry and another paper accepted in the International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems. I also recieved the proofs of another article coming out in the Journal CVD next month. I will of course update the publications page.

19/04/2012 Marking season is well and truly underway and i have been going through no fewer than 14 project reports! A serious activity. Aside form that i have been writing yet more papers and have a submitted a couple. Hopefully i'll here so,me good news about them soon. Some of my work on thermochromic glazing has been recieving some attention on blogs - in particular Marco Berti's "The Chameleon Building" - Have a look at the English site here.

10/03/2012 An eventful month that has seen me writing more papers and doing an awful lot of marking. I have been orginsing the first event of the Binions Group Pentathlon which will take place at the end of April at the new adventure golf course at the world of Golf in Croydon. No doubt many pictures will be taken and posted shortly afterwards. I also had the pleasure of attending the 2012 SET for Britain awards at the Houses of Parliament on behalf of the Society of Chemical Industry London Regional Group who sponsor one of the awards. I'm pictured below with this years Westminster Medal winner Mr Nicholas Love.

23/02/2012 Materials Letter paper has come into print - publications page updated accordingly. I have also been updating the group pages with photographs of new members.

17/02/2012 Busy time recently, I have been writing yet more papers, participating in a department of local communities and government expert panel meeting on thermal insulation and storage. Time to start writing some grant proposals I think. Had news that a paper on the spatial distribution of explosive residue has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Forensic Sciences - will update the publications page in due course, in the mean time please enjoy a picture of the explosions used in this work :-)

27/01/2012 Several items of news. Firstly a paper concerning novel indium oxide gas sensors has come into print in the journal Langmuir - publication page updated accordingly. Secondly i've finally got to read my chapter in Intelligent Nanomaterials published by Wiley Scrivener (see piccy below). Thirdly and finally had a paper concenring some new gas sensor materials accepted in Materials Letters and another on electric field assisted chemical vapour deposition accepted in the journal "Chemical Vapor Deposition", hopefully they'll both be in print soon.

05/01/2012 Happy New Year! Safely back at work and i have already had the first paper of 2012 come into print! Also added another paper that came out over the winter break - this time my first essay! I am sure my English teachers from school would be the first to express a certain amount of surprise, certainly i never thought i would have an essay published but there you go. Publication page has been updated. Also here is piccy of Team Binions at our first, but hopefully annual, xmas dinner. Special prize to anyone who can tell me what the picture on the right in the background is of?

15/12/2011 Term is finally drawing to a close. I know mainly by the pile of marking i have to do. Looking forward to having a relaxing break over the winter period. I've recently had a couple of papers accepted that should be coming into print in the new year. I'll add them as soon as they are published. Wishing all a happy winter holiday and new year!

02/12/2011 A new paper comes into print, this one about fluorine doped vanadium dioxide thin films for use in smart glazing. It has been added to the publication page. I've also been doing some revisions on a couple of other papers, hopefully they will be accepted and published soon.

14/11/2011 Been a busy month. I have been presenting work at the IEEE Sensors Conference 2011 held at the University of Limerick. Also a new publication has come into print. This one about the use of Zeolite over layers to enhance the detection of NO2 gas. I've also recently agreed to author two book chapters - both concern metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors, though different aspects of them, i'll add details as soon as i know them. I had some other good news as well as i found out that i have a funded PhD position available to start in September 2012. The funding is to look at the use of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells in Energy Efficient Glazing. The position will be advertised on jobs.ac.uk and on the School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary, University of London web site.

17/10/2011 Just back from the 220th ECS meeting in Boston where i was speaking about the use of UV light to activate metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors. I am happy to report a new publication this one about the use of barium stannate as a carbon dioxide sensitive material.

7/10/2011 I am very happy to add two new publications to the publications page. Have also recently received proofs of a chapter i have written to be included in this forthcoming title from Wily-Scrivener.

20/09/2011 I moved to QMUL on the 1st September 2011 and have been settling in. So far so good. I have a new PhD student and two new undergraduate project students starting at the end of the month, i'll update the group pages in due course. In the mean time i've added a publication to the publications page have also had a number of publications accepted over the summer, they'll be added in due course.

28/07/2011 Been a busy summer of writing up the last few months work and settling summer students into place. The group pages have been updated, hopefully so new publication news soon.

9/06/2011 One paper added to the publications page. This one describes the production of multifunctional thin films using the hybrid CVD methodology developed at UCL. In other perhaps more significant news i have accepted the position of Lecturer in Functional Materials in the School of Engineering and Materials Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London and I look forward to joining my new colleagues in September.

28/04/2011 A book chapter I wrote last year titled "Novel Chemical Vapour Deposition Routes to Nanocomposite Thin Films" has become available electronically here. It is an open access chapter available to anyone who is interested.

24/03/2011 Been a busy couple of months. I've had two papers accepted in Thin Solid Films on various aspects of thermochromic coatings, hopefully these will come into print soon. I have also had a paper come into print in the IEEE Sensors Journal. This paper deals with new developments in the use of zeolites as selective filters for metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors. In the paper we show how we can discriminate between two very similar molecular species. I have also updated the group pages.

I also recently attended the 2011 SET for Britain event at Houses of Parliament representing the SCI London regional group who sponsor the Westminster medal in honor of the late Dr Eric Wharton. I am pictured below with this years medal winner Mr Andrew Treharne from the department of chemistry at the University of Southampton.

05/01/2011 Happy New Year! Been a busy holiday period for me as I went to Pacifichem 2010 to present findings from the electric field and CVD project (piccy below). Also had some great news, i've been cast as one of the journal "Advanced Materials Letters" Scientists of the year as a result of the review paper we published last year. I have also been invited to speak at the forthcoming EUROCVD conference in Ireland.

06/12/2010 Two new papers added to the publications page. One concerns the application of electric fields to aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition reactions and is the first significant paper in this field. The other is the latest of our work looking at using zeolites to improve sensor discrimination.

23/10/2010 I've just had a couple of papers accepted in the journals "Thin Solid Films" and "The Journal of the Electrochemical Society", details will be added when they appear in print. In other news i was part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of SHAC - The society for the history of alchemy and chemistry held at the Royal Institution on Friday 19th November 2010 (see picture below).

28/10/2010 I've not long returned from giving an invited talk at TCM 2010 on "Thermochromic Thin Films for SMART Glazing" see piccy below. The conference was held at the Cladera Palace resort in Analipsi, Crete, Greece and was one of the best conferences i have been to so far.

08/10/2010 A new paper added to the publications page. This one is titled "Electric Fields and Chemical Vapour Deposition" and represents the first work completed on the ElFi CVD project. In other news the group pages have been updated and include new profiles on the latest members of the group.

27/09/2010 A new paper added to the publications page. Titled "Optimization of thermochromic thin films on glass; design of intelligent windows", this paper discusses some recent building energy use simulation results.

09/09/2010 Just arrived back from a two week break in France to find that two papers have come into print. Firstly a big review article on solid state thermochromic compounds in Advanced Materials Letters - an open access journal. The second my first independent research paper in the journal Chemical Vapor Deposition. Both papers have been added to the publications page.

23/08/2010 One new paper added to the publications page. This paper titled "Step-wise dealumination of natural clinoptilolite: Structural and physicochemical characterization" comes from a collaboration between groups in London, France and Cuba.

03/08/2010 My paper in Energy and Buildings concerning energy modeling studies of thermochromic glazing has come into print. I'm very pleased with this paper, it is the first of its kind showing that thermochromic glazing can provide a major energy benefit over current technologies. You can download it here.

15/07/10 Some good news as i have had a paper accepted in the IEEE Sensors Journal. I have also added a page on my labs, you can have a look at some of the facilities available here. I've also updated the group members page you can view here. In other news i am going to have a busy summer writing chapters for books; one on novel CVD methods for nanocomposites the other on thermochromic vanadium dioxide as a smart material.

24/06/10 Yesterday i had the great pleasure of being presented to Prince William as part of the convocation of the fellowship - the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society (picture below). In other news i am off to the Universitat Rovira I Virgili in Tarragona in Spain to give a talk titled "New Approaches to Metal Oxide Semiconductor Gas Sensors" meeting information can be found here.

02/06/10 Review paper entitled "Metal Oxide Semi-Conductor Gas Sensors in Environmental Monitoring" has been published in the journal "Sensors". The article is open access and you can download a copy for free here.

26/05/10 I was also recently part of a consortia awarded £8,000 by the EPSRC / UCL Bridging the Gaps - Sensing for Urban Sustainability programme to develop a prototype portable sensor array for real time air quality mapping.

I have also been invited to write a chapter for a book entitled "Nanocomposite Materials, Theory and Applications" due to hit the shelves in early 2011. My chapter will cover novel CVD methodologies for the production of nanocomposite thin films and will highlight the work done at UCL with the hybrid CVD method and aerosol assisted CVD.

05/05/10 I have recently returned from the 217th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society in Vancouver, Canada, where I gave a presentation entitled "Electric Fields and Chemical Vapour Deposition".

14/04/10 An article has just been published about some of my research in Mondo ARC - a commercial lighting magazine, read the article here. In other news my first research paper as a complete independent has been accepted for publication in Chemical Vapor Deposition and should be online soon.