Initiated at the 2006 Carbon Conference in Aberdeen, the Ubbelohde Memorial Lectures were established in memory of Professor A. R. Ubbelohde from Imperial College London, in recognition of his enormous impact on the field of carbon science.
Past Recipients
2023 – Professor Tony Wickham: The Nuclear Graphite Lifecycle and its Relevance to Energy Supplies in the Future
2019 – Professor Rod Ruoff: Composite Materials with Graphene
2016 – Professor Eleanor Campbell: From free-flying Fullerene to Carbon Aerogels
2015 – Professor Peter Thrower: 1960-2015: 55 years developing an understanding of defects in graphite
2014 – Doctor Chris Ewels: Atomic-scale nanocarbon design : An alliance of microscopy and modelling
2013 – Professor Francisco Rodriguez-Reinoso: The uniqueness of activated carbon for gas separation and storage
2012 – Professor John Patrick : Coal – Just another carbon material
2009 – Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus: Developments in optical spectroscopy of carbon nanomaterials
2008 – Professor Steve Tennison: Nanoporous Carbons – Past, Present and Future
2006 – Professor Sir Harold Kroto NL: Architecture in Nanospace
Professor A. R. Ubbelohde FRS
Prof. Ubbelohde had a wide interest over a range of topics in physics and chemistry but is chiefly remembered for his outstanding work on carbon, especially graphite and its intercalation compounds. He worked on this over many years, initially at Queens University, Belfast and then at Imperial College, London. He then pioneered the production of Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) in the Carbon Research laboratory at IC, where the properties of this material were investigated extensively and samples sent to many other laboratories.
He was recognised internationally for this work and was also one the founders, and Chairman for many years, of the Industrial Carbon and Graphite Group of the Society of Chemical Industry, which merged with the Carbon Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics to form the present British Carbon Group (BCG). The quadrennial London Conferences on Carbon and Graphite that he initiated became major international events and were fore-runners of the present annual international Carbon Conferences. He was a large man, in all senses, with an enormous range of interests outside physical chemistry. He was an inspirational teacher and supervisor, who left a legacy of many generations of his research students and associates.
In the photograph, taken at one of the Buffalo international conferences, he appears on the right of the organiser, Prof. S. Mrosowski, another major figure in carbon researcher and a great friend.
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