to British Petroleum, which had a special Venture Research Unit, headed up by
Professor Don Braben, who was helped by Dr. David Ray; they looked at the
proposal and said this is really exciting. Now, this is industry. You would think they
would be hard-nosed, but this Venture Research Unit was also sometimes called the
‘blue sky research unit’. They sent the proposal off to internal review at British
Petroleum, and we got very strong backing from Professor Mike Green, who was at
BP at the time. About a year later, we got a grant for over a quarter of a million
pounds. In 1987, that was a massive amount of money. So big it hit the newspapers
—The Daily Telegraph—not the science pages, but page five: ‘BP funds
super-solvent.’ On that grant, I hired Tom Welton, who was completing his D.Phil.
at the time, and that was the start of everything that happened. Without Don
Braben’s support, insight, and encouragement, the field on ionic liquids as we now
know it would not have happened.”
In 1993, Seddon was appointed Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at Queen’s
University Belfast.
As co-founder of the industry–university consortium centre QUILL (Queen’s
University Ionic Liquid Laboratories), with Co-director Jim Swindall in 1999, Ken
built a multidisciplinary faculty of chemists and chemical engineers in Northern
Ireland. Ken liked different cultures and was very open-minded, so he tended to hire
people from all over the world. At one point, QUILL recruited researchers from 40
different countries. By 1999, there was sufficient industrial support from a dozen
companies, such as Shell, Chevron, and Procter & Gamble.
QUILL invented new applications for ionic liquids in various areas of life: from
triggered release of perfume, Brønsted and Lewis catalysts for various processes,
treatment of nuclear waste, safer battery materials, and lubricants. Sectors as
diverse as oil and gas refining, biofuels, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and novel
antimicrobial (disinfectant) treatments have all benefited. Research by the team
sponsored by the Malaysian company PETRONAS and in close cooperation with
them led to the first-ever technology to scrub toxic mercury from natural gas
production streams.
Now, there are many prominent centres for ionic liquids around the globe
including the UK, USA, Australia, Denmark, Portugal, and others.
Professor Tom Welton OBE, Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial
College, London, says, “At Queen’s, Ken became a key figure in changing ionic
liquids’ research from being a quiet academic backwater into a major area for
modern chemistry, with thousands of papers published every year.
It is remarkable how many of today’s established ionic liquids’ researchers had
their first paper in the field as the result of a collaboration with Ken.”
Tom obtained his B.Sc. from Sussex in 1985 and completed his D.Phil. (supervised by Ken) in 1990.
Ken had a very special work rate. He could manage many very different projects
at the same time. Luckily, Ken had a great memory. He could recall the contents of
multiple papers and their bibliographic data, which would be very handy during
x
Dedication to Prof. Kenneth “Ken” Richard Seddon
Professor Don Braben, who was helped by Dr. David Ray; they looked at the
proposal and said this is really exciting. Now, this is industry. You would think they
would be hard-nosed, but this Venture Research Unit was also sometimes called the
‘blue sky research unit’. They sent the proposal off to internal review at British
Petroleum, and we got very strong backing from Professor Mike Green, who was at
BP at the time. About a year later, we got a grant for over a quarter of a million
pounds. In 1987, that was a massive amount of money. So big it hit the newspapers
—The Daily Telegraph—not the science pages, but page five: ‘BP funds
super-solvent.’ On that grant, I hired Tom Welton, who was completing his D.Phil.
at the time, and that was the start of everything that happened. Without Don
Braben’s support, insight, and encouragement, the field on ionic liquids as we now
know it would not have happened.”
In 1993, Seddon was appointed Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at Queen’s
University Belfast.
As co-founder of the industry–university consortium centre QUILL (Queen’s
University Ionic Liquid Laboratories), with Co-director Jim Swindall in 1999, Ken
built a multidisciplinary faculty of chemists and chemical engineers in Northern
Ireland. Ken liked different cultures and was very open-minded, so he tended to hire
people from all over the world. At one point, QUILL recruited researchers from 40
different countries. By 1999, there was sufficient industrial support from a dozen
companies, such as Shell, Chevron, and Procter & Gamble.
QUILL invented new applications for ionic liquids in various areas of life: from
triggered release of perfume, Brønsted and Lewis catalysts for various processes,
treatment of nuclear waste, safer battery materials, and lubricants. Sectors as
diverse as oil and gas refining, biofuels, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and novel
antimicrobial (disinfectant) treatments have all benefited. Research by the team
sponsored by the Malaysian company PETRONAS and in close cooperation with
them led to the first-ever technology to scrub toxic mercury from natural gas
production streams.
Now, there are many prominent centres for ionic liquids around the globe
including the UK, USA, Australia, Denmark, Portugal, and others.
Professor Tom Welton OBE, Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial
College, London, says, “At Queen’s, Ken became a key figure in changing ionic
liquids’ research from being a quiet academic backwater into a major area for
modern chemistry, with thousands of papers published every year.
It is remarkable how many of today’s established ionic liquids’ researchers had
their first paper in the field as the result of a collaboration with Ken.”
Tom obtained his B.Sc. from Sussex in 1985 and completed his D.Phil. (supervised by Ken) in 1990.
Ken had a very special work rate. He could manage many very different projects
at the same time. Luckily, Ken had a great memory. He could recall the contents of
multiple papers and their bibliographic data, which would be very handy during
x
Dedication to Prof. Kenneth “Ken” Richard Seddon