Sexy Intelligent Materials for the 21st Century

Professor Leon Kane-Maguire
Faculty of Science - Intelligent Polymer Research Institute

The discoveries of electrically conducting organic polymers and more recently carbon nanotubes have provided scientists and engineers with remarkable new materials that have the potential to transform our lives. Under the leadership of Professor Gordon Wallace, researchers at the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) at the University of Wollongong have been actively exploring these exciting new nanomaterials for two decades, learning many of the secrets of their properties/capabilities and developing effective methods for their processing and integration into ‘intelligent’ devices. More recently, the multidisciplinary IPRI team (encompassing chemists, materials engineers, biologists and collaborators in medicine and physics) has successfully coupled these electromaterials with natural and synthetic biopolymers to produce new hybrid materials that can bridge the bionic interface – providing a more effective conduit between electronics and biology.

This talk will describe the exploitation of the unique chemical, electronic and mechanical properties of these nanomaterials by IPRI researchers in a range of exciting areas such as chemical and biochemical sensors, artificial muscles, solar cells, plastic batteries and smart fabrics. A particular focus will be on recent groundbreaking developments in the Nanobionics area, where these advanced electromaterials are being exploited in applications such as nerve cell regeneration in the Bionic Ear and in damaged spinal cord.

Brief Biography

Professor Leon Kane-Maguire was born in 1942 in Brisbane, Australia. With the active encouragement of his war widow mother, he and his twin brother obtained BSc (Honours) and PhD degrees in Chemistry from the University of Queensland. After postdoctoral research at Northwestern University (USA) and at University College London and Cambridge University, he joined the chemistry faculty at University College Cardiff, Wales, in 1971. As well as becoming a rabid supporter of the all-conquering Welsh Rugby team, he found time to develop a strong interest and reputation in synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry.

At the end of 1983, he returned to Australia as the Professor and Head of the Chemistry Department at the University of Wollongong. He continued to enjoy the challenges of organometallic research until his epiphany in 1990 - not ‘on the road to Damascus’ but at the bar of Shanghai Airport with Gordon Wallace. This marked the beginning of a very fruitful collaboration with Professor Wallace in the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, including the development of chiral (handed) conducting organic polymers such as polyanilines and the characterization of their chiroptical and nano-structural properties. More recently Professor Kane-Maguire has developed a strong interest in the interaction of conducting organic polymers with biological entities.

He has published 155 papers in international journals, 21 book chapters, 3 books and 2 patents.

Last reviewed: 7 May, 2008