Rob Russell, Bioanalyst and Biodeuteration Lab Manager within the National Deuteration Facility, has been awarded his PhD in the area of polymer biodeuteration and nanocomposites (2018) from the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Rob’s thesis, entitled “Characterisation of Polyhydroxyalkanoate blends via biodeuteration, and modification of material properties using carbon nanotubes”, involved the extraction of natural plastics from microbial cultures and modifying the properties by blending and nanocomposite formation using conductive carbon nanotubes. Most of the development work was performed in the NDF, ANSTO, and the labelled polymer blends were mapped using the Infrared beamline at the Australian Synchrotron.
Rob has developed expertise in fermentation process development for bacterial, fungal and algal cultures, and is currently working on biodeuteration of starch. The aim is to provide labelled starch that can be used in contrast variation studies for food research using Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS).
 |
Protonated/deuterated polymer blend mapped by Infrared microspectroscopy. Published in: Russell et al. Biomacromolecules 2014, 15, 644-649. DOI: 10.1021/bm4017012 Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society |
Published: 24/01/2018