Victor Pretorius Memorial Lecturer 2014: Prof Len Barbour

In Celebration of the International Year of Crystallography

Professor Barbour is an A-rated researcher, and holds a South African Research Chair in Nanostructured Functional Materials at the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, University of Stellenbosch. His research interests entail the study of structure-property relationships in crystalline materials, with specific focus on porous materials for the selective storage, separation and sensing of gases.

Len Barbour received the National Science and Technology Forum Award for research and its outputs over the past 5 years or less in 2007, and was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 2008 for his contributions to science in South Africa.

Professor Barbour presented a colourful lecture on the discovery and characterisation of crystalline materials with unusual properties. In particular, he discussed the development of new approaches to in-situ analysis of gas-loaded porous materials by means of X-ray diffraction and calorimetry. Such studies have led to a molecular-level understanding of dynamic processes that occur in the crystalline solid state (e.g. flexible pores and pressure-induced phase transformations).

Share this page