Skip to content
Skip to navigation menu

 

Staff profile

Prof Neil McKeown 


Prof Neil McKeown
Position:Professor of Organic Materials Chemistry
School:Chemistry
Telephone:+44 (0)29 208 75851Fax:+44 (0)29 208 74030

Additional Information

PhD University of East Anglia (1987). Postdoctoral Research fellow, York University, Ontario (1987-9). Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Toronto (1989-91). Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader, University of Manchester (1991-2004). Leverhulme Research Fellow (2000-2001). Appointed as Professorial Research Fellow, Cardiff, in 2004.

Research Interests

  • Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity (PIMs; e.g. Fig.1).
  • Polymer membranes for gas and large molecule separations and for water purification.
  • Organic hydrogen-storage materials for clean fuel applications.
  • Microporous organic crystals with in-built catalytic sites (e.g. Fig. 2).
  • Polymer-based nanomedicines.

Our group uses organic synthetic chemistry to prepare novel materials (e.g. phthalocyanines, dendrimers, porous crystals and polymers) with interesting functionality. For example, we have developed the concept of polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) which are organic polymers that, due to their highly rigid and contorted structures (Fig. 1), do not pack space efficiently therefore creating interconnected molecular-sized holes (i.e. micropores). Of great interest is the possibility of using these materials to adsorb large quantities of hydrogen and thus solve the "hydrogen storage problem" that threatens the viability of using this clean carbon-free fuel to power cars. Also of interest is the preparation of crystals derived from small organic molecule which are microporous, for example, the remarkable structure shown in Fig. 2 which possesses large solvent-filled voids and in-built catalytic sites for heterogeneous catalysis.

The rigid and contorted molecular structure of a polymer of intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1)The crystal structure of zinc 2,3,9,10,16,17,23,24-octa(2’,6’-di-iso-propylphenoxy)phthalocyanine

Diagram

Further Information

Selected Publications

Neil B. McKeown, Saad Makhseed, Kadhum J. Msayib, Li-Ling Ooi, Madeleine Helliwell, John E. Warren, A Phthalocyanine Clathrate of Cubic Symmetry Containing Interconnected Solvent-Filled Voids of Nanometer Dimensions, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 44 (2005) 7546, doi:10.1002/anie.200502668

Neil B. McKeown, Peter M. Budd, Kadhum J. Msayib, Bader S. Ghanem, Helen J. Kingston, Carin E. Tattershall, Saad Makhseed, Kevin J. Reynolds, Detlev Fritsch, Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity (PIMs): Bridging the Void between Microporous and Polymeric Materials, Chemistry - A European Journal 11 (2005) 2610, doi:10.1002/chem.200400860

Peter M. Budd, Bader S. Ghanem, Saad Makhseed, Neil B. McKeown, Kadhum J. Msayib and Carin E. Tattershall, Polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs): robust, solution-processable, organic nanoporous materials, Chem. Commun. (2004) 230, doi:10.1039/b311764b

Peter M. Budd, Bader Ghanem, Kadhum Msayib, Neil B. McKeown and Carin Tattershall, A nanoporous network polymer derived from hexaazatrinaphthylene with potential as an adsorbent and catalyst support, J. Mater. Chem. 13 (2721 - 2726) 2721, doi:10.1039/b303996j