Dr. Tim Mason
Tim Mason studied chemistry at Southampton University between 1964-1970 (BSc and PhD) and subsequently was awarded a NATO Fellowship which took him to Amherst College USA to further his studies in Physical Organic Chemistry. He moved to Coventry University (at that time a Polytechnic) in 1975 and together with (the late) Phil Lorimer helped pioneer the development of sonochemistry from obscurity to international recognition. He organised the first ever international symposium on Sonochemistry as part of an RSC Meeting at Warwick University in 1986, co-authored the first ever book devoted to sonochemistry in 1989 “Sonochemistry, Theory, Applications and Uses of Ultrasound in Chemistry” and has subsequently published 14 books, 35 chapters in texts and over 300 papers on sonochemistry, his overall h-index is 56 and Research Gate score is 44.14.
In 1991 co-founder and first president of the European Society of Sonochemistry a post which he held until June 2014. Also in 1991 he was the driving force behind the establishment of a new Elsevier Journal “Ultrasonics Sonochemistry” for which he is now Editor in Chief the Impact Factor is currently 4.321. He received a D.Sc. from Southampton University (1996) for research into sonochemistry and currently holds four honorary chairs at Chongqing Medical University (China), Nanjing Institute for Environmental Science (China), Lviv Polytechnic University (Ukraine) and Kazan State Technical University “A. N. Tupolev” (Tatarstan, Russia).
A sonochemistry exhibit was part of the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in 2009 and sonochemistry and it was selected as part of the Research Councils UK “Big ideas for the future” 2011
Together with Patrick Grant he co-authored a contribution to the government initiated Foresight review entitled “The Future of Manufacturing: a New Era of Opportunity” (2013). The evidence paper (#10) was entitled “What impact will the development and, potentially, the commercialisation of new and advanced materials have on the future of manufacturing activities in the UK?”
UK grants within last 8 years £ 192,857:
Carbon Trust “R&D into cost effective techniques for the extraction of oils/valuable co-products from algae using ultrasound and ionic liquids’ part of the Algae Biofuel Challenge a consortium of 13 UK universities which ran for 1 year £106,650
IeMRC The Evaluation of Sonochemical Techniques for Sustainable Surface Modification in Electronic Manufacturing (three grants) £56,207
Charitable trusts (various) “The use of focused ultrasound for the release of drugs contained in capsules targeted at cancer growth within the body” £30,000
EU grants within last 8 years:
FP7 “A pilot line of antibacterial and antifungal medical textiles based on a sonochemical process”
Top 5 relevant publications
“Microwave and Ultrasonic processing: now a realistic option for industry”, C.Leonelli and T.J.Mason, Chemical Engineering and Processing, 885–900, 2010
A review of the ways in which microwave and ultrasonic processing has been developed to the point where they are now accessible and commercially available as industrial processes (196 citations).
“The extraction of natural products using ultrasound or microwaves”, T.J.Mason, F.Chemat and M Vinatoru, Current Organic Chemistry, 15 (2), 237-247, 2011.This article reviews the advantages that accrue from the incorporation of either ultrasound or microwaves into an extraction process. The two techniques offer different approaches in that ultrasound is generally used to improve conventional solvent extraction whereas microwaves are known for their ability to remove constituents via heating without solvents. These techniques facilitate more accurate targeting of the active constituents of plant extracts (71 citations).
“New evidence for the inverse dependence of mechanical and chemical effects on the frequency of ultrasound”, T.J.Mason, A.J.Cobley and J.E.Graves, Ultrasonics Sonochemistry, 18, 226–230, 2011.
This paper explores the effects of ultrasound applied at different frequencies on the relative importance of mechanical effects which predominate at lower frequencies (surface damage and material break-down) and chemical effects (surface oxidation and free radical formation) which are more important at higher frequencies (78 citations).
“Effect of ultrasound treatment on particle size and molecular weight of whey proteins”, A.R.Jambrak, T.J .Mason, V.Lelas, L.Paniwnyk and Z.Herceg, Journal of Food Engineering, 121, 15-23
The effect of ultrasound on particle size and molecular weight of whey proteins at 20 and 40 kHz was studied. ultrasound caused a decrease in particle size, narrowed size distribution and significantly increased the specific free surface area. Such changes are associated with partial cleavage of intermolecular hydrophobic interactions, rather than peptide or disulphide bonds (33 citations).
“Effect of ultrasonic frequency and power on the disruption of algal cells”, K. Yamamoto, P.M.King, X.Wu, T.J.Mason and E.M.Joyce, Ultrasonics Sonochemistry, 24, 165–171, 2015.
The effect of ultrasonic waves on suspensions of Chlamydomonas concordia and Dunaliella salina have been investigated at frequencies of 20, 585, 864 and 1146kHz. The results showed that suitable disruption frequencies for each algae were associated with the mechanical properties of the cell. The frequency dependence of the efficiency of algae disruption on the mechanical resonances of both the algae cell is discussed in terms of bubble oscillation in an ultrasonic field.