Justin D. Holmes Deputy Director of AMBER

Justin D. Holmes is Professor of Nanochemistry in the School of Chemistry at University College Cork (UCC), a Principal Investigator at the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) and the Tyndall National Institute at UCC and Deputy Director of AMBER. He is acknowledged as an international leader in the synthesis, characterisation and functionalisation of nanomaterials using combinations of bottom-up and top-down approaches. He has > 400 peer-reviewed research publications in materials science and was co-founder of the UCC spin-out company Glantreo Ltd. Justin leads the Materials Chemistry and Analysis Group (MCAG) at UCC, developing chemical methods to synthesise and assemble nanostructured materials for environmental and energy applications.

Justin is co-lead of AMBER’s Engineered Functional Materials research theme, and leads the sub-theme on Sustainable Materials. His research in this area includes creating cheap, nanoscale catalysts for chemically recycling waste plastics. The group has already developed an energy efficient and environmentally friendly microwave process for recycling waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) using recoverable and recyclable catalysts.