Neil ROBINSON

Dr. Neil Robinson’s research lies at the interface of chemistry, physics, and engineering, focusing on developing and characterizing next-generation materials with the potential to solve energy, environmental, and societal issues.

A Research Fellow at The University of Western Australia, Dr Robinson has pioneered the application of magnetic resonance techniques (similar to medical MRI) to problems in chemical engineering and materials science for the last decade. This work has targeted significant impact within the chemical, energy and critical minerals industries, and includes work developing new catalyst materials and processes for the energy-efficient production of low-carbon fuels, state-of-the-art measurement approaches to optimize environmentally friendly engineering cements, and materials design approaches to enable the large-scale transport of green hydrogen.

He has primarily applied such approaches to gain new insight and understanding into the behavior of gases and liquids confined within optically opaque porous materials, which have a wide variety of critical applications. In the field of catalysis, Neil has applied magnetic resonance to understand the competitive surface interactions of chemicals and solvents involved in liquid phase reactions, providing new approaches for solvent selection, and also to measure and confirm the connectivity of small pore structures within designer hierarchical materials for the targeted production of liquid biofuels in the presence of contaminants. He has further applied such methods as a rapid screening tool to understand the gas admission capabilities of microporous zeolite materials, which are important in gas process engineering for their ability to store and separate useful gases, such as methane and helium.

Neil has also worked to further the application of magnetic resonance in the study and optimization of engineering cements, demonstrating the use of such techniques in understanding the mechanical strength and solidification rates of cements containing industrial waste materials like mine tailings, highlighting potential methods for the long-term storage of such waste in an environmentally friendly manner. He has further demonstrated for the first time how to interpret magnetic resonance data obtained cement material containing the combustion waste material fly ash. Dr Robinson is currently developing new materials and technology to efficiently liquefy hydrogen for its large-scale export around the globe.