Our themes

We have divided our activities into five themed areas:
 
1. Controlling the assembly of designed molecular frameworks and hybrid materials with targeted properties.
Developing a better understanding of how the assembly process works in molecular frameworks and hybrid materials. The aim is to make complex materials architectures accessible and controllable. The impact of this theme will be in the fields of energy and sustainability including gas storage, fuel cell and battery materials.
 
2. Controlling nucleation and crystallization processes.
Elucidating the fundamental physics and chemistry that govern the structure of the nucleation transition state, with the aim of improving processes for production of crystalline and microcrystalline solid-state materials. Impact will be in areas such as pharmaceuticals, energy, food products, dyes & pigments.
 
3. Controlling molecular self-assembly in biological and biomimetic systems.
This theme aims to develop biomimetic methods with the intent of achieving some of the special selectivities that enzymes display. New approaches to making biologically active materials, harnessing the power of biology in creating and optimising chemically-important processes will be developed. Impact will be in the fields of health and therapy, drug delivery and energy and sustainability.
 
4. Controlling surface-based molecular self-assembly for applications in interface science.
The target of this theme is to move molecular self-assembly into longer length scales whilst retaining and enhancing control of growth processes with the intent of being able to build large volumes of nanostructured, self-assembled materials in three dimensions. Its impact will be in enabling the creation of novel materials with electrical, magnetic and switchable properties.
 
5. Developing self-optimised chemical systems through self-evolution.
The aim of this theme is to combine the power of modern computational and algorithmic methods, together with ideas of self-assembly and evolutionary chemistry, to give an intelligent integration approach in which pre-organised arrangements of chemical building-blocks are brought together to form nanostructures or larger arrays with particular functionality. The impact will be in rational materials design, working towards automated optimisation of materials for a given property.