Chris Breen

Biography

Chris did his first degree (1976) and PhD (1980) at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and after a short spell as a postdoc at Exeter, moved to a lectureship in physical chemistry at Dublin City University (1981). He arrived at Sheffield City Polytechnic in 1987 and then moved to MERI in 1992. In addition to growing his research group, Chris was also MERI's Technology Transfer Coordinator until 2000. Chris was awarded a personal Chair in 2002 and appointed a Head of Research Centre in 2004. He is currently responsible for the Polymers, Nanocomposites and Modelling Research Centre. Chris has worked on clay-organic complexes for almost 40 years and has successfully transferred this expertise into the production, characterisation and use of clay-based polymer nanocomposites. These materials offer significant changes in mechanical, barrier and fire resistant properties and the work has attracted considerable funding from the European Union, the research councils and directly from industry. The work on sustainable packing based on biopolymer-clay nanocomposites has led to a spin-out company being formed in Sweden and the move into biomedical applications has produced two more patents together with colleagues in MERI and BMRC.

Research Interest

Polymers, Nanocomposites and Modelling