• Question: what is the biggest accomplishment in your field of work

    Asked by David to Thomas, Anne on 21 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by sharleen.
    • Photo: Thomas Farrugia

      Thomas Farrugia answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      Hoi David!

      If we’re talking about my work and what I have achieved I’d say it’s getting a film made of three enzymes to work – this is a solid material that can be easily handled and used to start and stop reactions by simply adding or removing it from a solution.

      If we’re talking about the actual field – which I think I would class as materials chemistry, I’d say that it has to be the design of techniques that allow for making new forms of material, regardless of the actual chemicals you use. For example you can use ice to make porous materials – you put a monomer into water to make a mixture, then freeze the water. When you do this the monomer will concentrate around the edges of the ice crystals, and you can make them react to form a polymer. After that it’s easy peasy to dissolve the water, leaving behind a polymer “sponge” which has holes the sizes of ice crystals.

      So in short – if you can come up with new approaches to making materials, it’s bound to be popular 🙂

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