Prof Steve Tennison awarded Carbon Industry Prize 2015

27 Nov 2015

The SCI/BCG Carbon in Industry prize for 2015 has been awarded to Prof Steve Tennison. Steve began his career at BP Research in the Sunbury labs. He worked for many years on active carbons and in particular how to control the porosity for different applications. During this period, he and his group produced a novel catalyst, based on caesium-promoted ruthenium on carbon, for the synthesis of ammonia, the first commercially successful development since Haber’s original iron catalyst. This is now in use in six of the World’s largest ammonia plants. However the realisation of the problems inherent in conventional activated carbons lead to the development of the polymer derived carbons that form the foundation of the current company.

He left BP to set up MAST Carbon International with a colleague to exploit commercially the special adsorptive properties of carbons in industrial applications. The factory at Basingstoke has the capacity to produce carbons for a variety of purposes. The main use is of carbon cloth, which is utilized in a great variety of applications for removal of noxious materials, in military protection against CBR and in specialist medical applications. The company has a number of R&D projects funded internationally. Steve himself is an active member of the British Carbon Group, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a visiting professor at the University of Bath. He gave one of the prestigious Ubbelohde lectures to the BCG in 2008.

A half day meeting will be held on Thursday 17 December 2015 at SCI devoted to UK carbon research: Carbon at Christmas.

The ‘Carbon at Christmas image competition’ (prize £100) is currently open for submission and will be judged on the day. Send your entries (or an internet link to your entry), which can be on any aspect of any carbon to m.heggie@surrey.ac.uk by Thursday
10 December 2015.

Additionally, there will be three presentations during the event, including the Carbon in Industry prize lecture by Prof Steve Tennison on Nanoporous Carbons - New and Emerging Industrial Applications.

Norman Parkyns
Vice-Chair of SCI, RSC and IoP British Carbon Group

Related Links:

• Carbon at Christmas, 17 December 2015 - Book by 10 December!
• British Carbon Group