Dr Ezio Rizzardo: inventor of RAFT.

Dr Ezio Rizzardo: revolutionising polymer development

Dr Ezio Rizzardo, CSIRO Fellow, devises living free radical polymerisation technology that revolutionises polymer development.

• 12 October 2011 | Updated 14 December 2011

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Dr Rizzardo was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Science [external link] in October 2011 for his role in revolutionising polymer science.

Dr Rizzardo was elected to The Royal Society [external link] in May 2010 for his pioneering work relating to the control of free radical polymerisation.

Current activities

Dr Ezio Rizzardo is a CSIRO Fellow whose research at CSIRO has focused on developing methods for controlling free radical polymerisation.

Dr Rizzardo is currently developing new technologies to produce polymers with controlled structure and architecture. There are multiple applications in industry ranging from coating to adhesives and biosensors.

Dr Rizzardo and his team have devised living free radical polymerisation methods including RAFT, a reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer. This is a chain reaction form of free radical polymerisation. This creates polymers with simple or complex architecture, such as:

• gradient
• diblock
• triblock
• star.

The polymers are all of predetermined average molecular size and narrow molecular size distributions.

Background

Before joining CSIRO to pursue a career in polymer science, Dr Rizzardo conducted postdoctoral work on synthesis of biologically active compounds including:

• vindolines
• vitamin D analogues
• prostaglandins.

He conducted this work at:

• Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA
• Research Institute for Medicine and Chemistry, USA
• Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

Dr Rizzardo’s research at CSIRO has focused on developing methods for understanding and controlling free radical polymerisation. This will produce polymers of better-defined structure and properties.

Academic qualifications

Dr Rizzardo graduated with first class Honours from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and was awarded a Doctorate by The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia, for his studies of the photochemistry of organic nitro compounds.

Achievements

He has been the leader and key member of teams that have devised and developed nitroxide mediated polymerisation (NMP), chain transfer by radical addition-fragmentation, and polymerisation with reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT).

Dr Rizzardo has produced a number of patents on the control of free radical polymerisation. One of these was first and a second was ninth in the list of the world’s most cited patents in Chemistry and Related Science for the year 2002.

For his work Dr Rizzardo has received several awards including:

• Australian Polymer Medal, Royal Australian Chemical Institute
• Applied Research Medal, Royal Australian Chemical Institute
• HG Smith Memorial Medal, Royal Australian Chemical Institute
• Chairman’s Gold Medal, CSIRO
• Most Prolific Inventor Award, CSIRO
• Centenary Medal, Australian Government
• The Prime Minister's Prize for Science, Australian Government.

Dr Rizzardo is co-author of some 200 journal papers, which to date have received over 13 000 citations, and 36 worldwide patent families.

Dr Rizzardo is a Fellow of the:

• Australian Academy of Science
• Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
• The Royal Society.

Additional high resolution images of Dr Rizzardo are available at Science Image Online [external link] by using the search term "Ezio".

Read more about the RAFT Technology: a process for making better polymers.