Green chemistry gets boost with $11M research chair

Montreal, QC – Robin Rogers, a researcher in sustainable science and technology, has been named as a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) at McGill University. He will receive $10 million over seven years in federal research funding along with an additional $1,219,352 for research infrastructure through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). The funding will help him equip his lab with state-of-art tools and a top-tier research team that will be in a good position to make fundamental discoveries in green chemistry and contribute to our understanding of new energy sources, novel materials and sustainable technologies.

An alumnus of the University of Alabama — where he served as distinguished research professor, Robert Ramsay Chair of Chemistry, and director of the Center for Green Manufacturing — Dr. Rogers is one of the world’s influential chemists and researchers. Now the new Canada Excellence Research chair in green chemistry and green chemicals at McGill University, he has also held positions at the Queen’s University of Belfast in Northern Ireland and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute for Process Engineering in Beijing.

His research covers the use of ionic liquids and green chemistry. Among other areas, this involves studying the development of polymeric and composite materials from biorenewables; novel strategies for the separation and purification of value-added products from biomass; new lubricant technologies and selective separations; and eliminating waste while delivering improved pharmaceutical performance.

At McGill, he will lead efforts to produce and support innovative and evolutionary, environmentally aware research and development efforts. His research focuses on the design and development of next-generation sustainable biomaterials for use in polymeric materials, fuels and commodity chemicals. He will also design and develop revolutionary, biologically active ionic liquids for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries, leading to increased efficacy, new treatment options and a reduced environmental burden.

The CERC program is a tri-agency initiative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). It is administered by the Chairs Secretariat, which is housed within SSHRC.