On 24 March 2011 Professor Ton Peijs from Queen Mary University of London delivered the prestigious Swinburne Lecture to an audience gathered at the International Conference on the Manufacturing of Advanced Composites (ICMAC) that was being held in Belfast, UK.

Prof. Ton Peijs received his PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology. From 1991 until 1999 he was assistant professor at Eindhoven. He moved to QMUL in 1999, where he is currently Professor of Polymer Technology. He is also a part-time professor at Eindhoven and a visiting professor in Patras University.

Prof. Peijs made notable contributions to areas such as biobased materials, natural fibre reinforced plastics, polymer fibres, thermoplastic composites and nanocomposites. He has pioneered the development of eco-composites; this includes work on bio-based polymer composites and more recently on the development of fully, recyclable all-polymer composites. His group also examines nano-scale architectures in polymer composites, the creation of high-performance fibres, intelligent nanocomposite films and conductive polymer fibres for sensors applications and smart textiles.

The Swinburne Medal and Prize recognises the achievement of a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement and knowledge of any field related to the science, engineering or technology of plastics. It is a requirement of acceptance that the recipient shall prepare and deliver the Swinburne Lecture on an occasion selected by the Institute. The Award consists of a medal and £250 honorarium.

Sir James Swinburne (1858-1958) is regarded as the ‘Father of the British Plastics Industry' as he worked to patent an important new plastic made by mixing phenol and formaldehyde. This dark, resinous product had first been formed some thirty years earlier by German chemist Adolf von Bayer. Swinburne considerably improved the method of preparing the resin, using a catalyst to accelerate production. Unknown to him, a chemist working independently in America, Belgian-born Leo Hendrik Baekeland, also recognised the resin's value. He patented the material in 1907, one day earlier than Swinburne, and named it Bakelite.

ICMAC 2011 was the ninth time that the conference, formerly The International Conference on Automated Composites, has been held and it drew in an international delegation of over 100 people from 13 different countries.

Prof. Peijs's lecture, originally entitled "Making Composites without Matrix" but later renamed by Prof. Peijs to "Making Composites with a Little Bit of Matrix" - to show that plastics were actually used!, showed how composite materials could be produced from single polymer systems that mimic the way in which nature forms composite materials.

Prof. Peijs demonstrated that these new materials could be easily manufactured and formed and may find wide ranging applications in a variety of industries from automotive to defence and personal safety, in leisure, construction, furniture and design. The materials are also sustainable in that they can be both recycled easily and also made from recycled materials themselves.

Download Prof. Peijs's Swinburne Lecture presentation on the link below.