Professor Robert Mokaya
OBE FRS
School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor of Materials Chemistry
Full contact details
School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Firth Court
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
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Professor Robert Mokaya OBE FRS joined the University of Sheffield in 2024 as Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor from the University of Nottingham where he was Pro Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement. Robert received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Nairobi in 1988 after which he spent a year working for Unilever in Kenya. He was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1992. In 1992 he was elected to a Research Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge and in 1996 was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Fellowship. He was appointed to a lectureship in Materials Chemistry at Nottingham in 2000, was promoted to Reader in Materials Chemistry in 2005, and to Professor of Materials Chemistry in 2008. He is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder (2017-2022). He was appointed OBE in 2022 for services to the Chemical Sciences and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2023. He is President-Elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2004 – 2006) and will be President for the period 2006 to 2008.
- Research interests
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The design, synthesis and characterisation of novel porous materials and the study of their structure- property relations is the focus of our research interests. The materials currently under investigation are those which may find use as solid state catalysts, adsorbents (especially for sustainable energy storage applications), molecular sieves and as hosts in the preparation of advanced composite materials. Of particular interest are templated porous solids and materials prepared via valorisation routes that are simple and sustainable. Examples are (i) zeolite templated carbons that replicate the structure of microporous zeolites, (ii) mesoporous molecular sieves (MMS) prepared via the 'Liquid Crystal Templating' (LCT) mechanism in which supramolecular assemblies of surfactant serve as components of the template for the formation of solid inorganic frameworks, and (iii) porous carbons generated via activation and carbonisation routes that encompass valorisation.