Horners Lecture
7th November 2024Royal Society of Medicine
Every year the Worshipful Company of Horners lay on the Ralph Anderson Memorial Lecture, to which all Masters and Consorts are invited.
This year the lecture was given by Professor Phil Coates, delivered remotely from Bradford, whilst we enjoyed the comfort of a lecture theatre at the Royal Society of Medicine.
The Horners are now connected to the plastics industry and therefore it should not be surprising that the lecture was entitled "Polymers are good for you - the progress of Polymer science".
After an update on what polymers are in general terms and some of their uses to ensure everybody understood the basic concepts, he then looked at some of the PR issues related to the plastics world before showing us some of the advance polymer products that are now being offered.
Some interesting facts from the lecure:
- 93% of all oil taken from the ground is burnt as fuel rather than being used as a feedstock for plastics/polymers
- Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled
- Most polymers come from oil/petroleum but some from biomass (for example cigarette filters)
- Most polymer products can have their composition tuned to match the end-user requirements. For example, stents can now made from plastic mesh which is dissolved and absorbed by the body in 24 months, replacing the more difficult to remove stainless mesh stents.
- Polymer pipes can be extruded in such a way that the polymer molecules line up axially to the pipe or around the circumference to suit the requirement.
Afterwards we had a very good buffet dinner, with continued conversations about polymers!
Fortunately I remembered enough from my school Organic Chemistry A level and my Engineering degree to understand almost all of the lecture and thoroughly enjoy it!