Chemistry, University of Southampton
Chemistry is located on the Highfield Campus to the north of Southampton and occupies research space in 4 buildings which have either been purpose built or extensively refurbished over the last 15 years. Chemistry sits within the Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences (with Biological Sciences and Ocean and Earth Science). The department currently has 52 academic staff organised under 6 research theme areas: Chemical Biology, Diagnostics & Therapeutics, Computational Systems, Electrochemistry, Functional Inorganic, Materials & Supramolecular Chemistry, Magnetic Resonance and Organic Chemistry: Synthesis, Catalysis and Flow, as well as two cross-cutting sections,Education and Characterisation and Analytics, that support work across the department. The management group is Chemistry Policy & Resources Committee comprising the Head of Chemistry (Prof. P. A. Gale), Deputy Head of Chemistry (Prof. R. C. D. Brown), Director of Research (Prof. G. Reid) and Director of Programmes (Prof. A. E. Russell. Financial management is through the Faculty Finance Manager, Ms K. McKinstry.
Research:
Chemistry at Southampton was ranked 8th in the UK for research power in REF2014. The department has a large Graduate School with over 150 PG students (MSc and PhD) and ~50 PDRA researchers, supported by funding from a range of sources including the Research Councils, the EU, ERC, charities and industry. Staff collaborate strongly with academic groups across the University (including the Centre for Biological Sciences, Medicine, Physics & Astronomy, Engineering Sciences, Electronics & Computer Science), nationally and internationally. Further details are available on the Chemistry web-site:
In addition, the department has hosted the EPSRC National Crystallography Service for over fifteen years, and in 2010 was awarded funding totalling >£4M to underpin the next generation service and to establish the Southampton Centre for X-Ray Diffraction, leading to investment in world-leading new diffraction facilities. The service is led by Prof. Phil Gale (Head of Service) and Dr Simon Coles (Operations Director). The diffraction capabilities have been enhanced further through the addition of excellent thin film and microfocus diffraction facilities installed in 2013 (9 kW RigakuSmartlab thin film).
Education:
Southampton Chemistry has received outstanding National Student Survey results that reflect the importance we place on the undergraduate student education experience. Education provision is organised under the headings of Inorganic, Organic and Physical Chemistry in the early years, with greater emphasis on the research themes in the senior years. All of our Chemistry UG degree programmes are fully accredited by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Currently we have over 450 UG students registered for either 4 year MChem, 3 year BSc or 4 year Natural Sciences degree programmes. Entry grades for the Chemistry degree programmes are between ‘AAA’ and ‘ABB’ at A level and ‘AAA’ for Nat. Sci. This equates to an annual intake of around 180 students into Year 1.
We also have a vigorous outreach programme led by Prof. D. Read (Head of Education), which provides a wide range of opportunities for young people and members of the public to participate in events and activities to promote chemistry, raise aspirations and the research activities in the department. These activities are delivered by students and staff from across Chemistry, as well as collaborations with other disciplines in the University and regionally.
Enterprise:
Research in the department has led to 4 spin-out companies (Ilika plc, Karus, Nanotecture and ATDBio). In 2010 Ilika plc, a company set up to exploit novel methods for high throughput materials discovery, floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange in at a market capitalisation of £18.7m. The Research & Innovations Services office in the University provides research groups with advice and support on the protection and exploitation of intellectual property, as well as on knowledge transfer partnerships and funding streams.
Equality:
Chemistry at Southampton is fully committed to the Athena SWAN Charter that recognises a commitment to addressing gender inequalities. Our involvement in the Athena Swan project is to improve career progression for female academics in science, engineering and technology disciplines in higher education and research in Southampton Chemistry. The project aims to tackle an uneven representation of women in science and as a result achieve a significant increase in the number of women recruited to top posts.
Southampton Chemistry was delighted to be awarded aSilver Athena SWAN award inApril 2015 in recognition of our continued efforts to support the career aspirations of female chemists. Chemistry has been actively engaged with Athena SWAN for a number of years both by supporting the University's Bronze applications and through the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Diamond Light Source, Didcot
Diamond Light Source is the UK’s national synchrotron and a leading scientific facility of its type in the world, pushing the boundaries of what is possible, and keeping the UK at the forefront of cutting-edge science. Located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in South Oxfordshire, we host research facilities supporting research in all fields of science. Chemistry is a key area and is supported by other world leading facilities at Harwell like the UK’s neutron spallation source ISIS, as well as the Central Laser Facility. We also benefit from synergies with the Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH), which hosts a broad range of interdisciplinary research groups including the Catalysis Hub and the Dynamic Structural Science Consortium.
Diamond generates brilliant beams of light from infra-red to X-rays which are used for academic and industry research, offering a wide range of analytical techniques to the many communities it supports, including diffraction scattering fluorescence and X-ray imaging, microscopy and spectroscopy. Over 8,000 user visits take place each year, and both academia and industry use Diamond to conduct experiments. Some 90 companies regularly pay for access and 25% of all experiments have an indirect impact on Industry research. As such, Diamond plays a leading role in keeping R&D based in the UK as well as attracting investment to the Harwell Campus. Now in its third phase of construction, Diamond currently has 25 beamlines in operation, with a further eight due for completion by 2018. The selection process for beamlines and experimental stations takes into account many different aspects such as scientific potential, size and strength of UK user communities, technical novelty and feasibility, and potential of industrial applications. In Phase III, the focus was to fill gaps in methods still not provided for, and to identify areas where advances beyond what is already in place at Diamond, and at other synchrotron facilities worldwide, might be possible.
Much of the research effort in the synthetic chemistry, materials and pharmaceutical sciences, within both academia and industry, are underpinned by small-molecule single-crystal x-ray diffraction techniques. The determination of an accurate crystal structure is a crucial factor not only in the characterisation of a new compound but it is also a crucial factor for our understanding of the properties of a material. Single-crystal diffraction remains the favoured method for determining the accurate structure of crystalline materials but when suitable single-crystals cannot be grown powder-diffraction techniques offer a powerful alternative. They also offer the advantage that structural changes due to variations in temperature, pressure or some in-situ chemical process can be readily tracked, which would be either too technically difficult or too time-consuming with single-crystal techniques. Surface and interface diffraction can be used for investigating the structure of surfaces and interfaces under different environmental conditions, including, for example, semiconductors and biological films.
X-ray spectroscopy is a powerful tool for the determination of local atomic structure in solid, liquid or gaseous matter not characterised by crystalline order. The suite of six Spectroscopy Village beamlines covers a broad portfolio of different techniques including X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Imaging, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Small-Angle Scattering (SAS), Inelastic X-ray Scattering (IXS) and energy dispersive Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS). The beamlines are highly complementary in terms of spatial and time resolution, photon energy range and chemical sensitivity to meet the requirements for exciting new science by the diverse user communities. The potential of microfocus x-ray spectroscopy is largely unexplored in chemistry. Sub-micron beams can give fundamental insights into a wide range of important chemical reactions and ultra-dilute systems, enhancing the study of reactions at solid interfaces and solid/liquid interfaces, and lead to the development of improved materials through studies of ceramic and composite materials. Recent work has enabled single catalyst particle imaging. XAS is used for an extensive range of studies and applications, including local structure and electronic state of active catalysis components, and the study of materials including fluids, crystalline and non-crystalline (amorphous phases & colloids) solids, surfaces and nano-particles.
Synchrotron light has a wide range of applications in chemical research. Solid state chemistry is being explored under extreme conditions, revealing new polymeric and framework forms of various compounds. Extreme conditions experiments have great potential for new solid state chemistry to predict new materials and their properties.
Simultaneous small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and mechanical testing allow the study of the microstructural changes that occur on deformation of polymers. By studying the behaviour of the material at different stages of degradation we are able to map the relationships between microstructure, degradation and ultimate mechanical response. This enables rational design of microstructure for desired properties.