Richard Barrer

Richard Maling Barrer FRS (16 June 1910 – 12 September 1996) was a New Zealand-born chemist. His areas of research included gas permeability of membranes and zeolite science, of which he was a founding figure; he also gave his name to the zeolite Barrerite.^[1] The Barrer, a unit of gas permeability, is also named after him.^[2]

The son of New Zealand sheep farmers, his undergraduate degree was from Canterbury College (now University of Canterbury), in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1932 he received a 1851 Exhibition Scholarship which allowed him to study at Eric Rideal's Colloid Science Laboratory in Cambridge University. At Cambridge he was also a keen cross-country runner, winning the 1934 Oxford-Cambridge race and being awarded a Full Blue for Athletics. He received his PhD from Cambridge in 1935 and DSc's in 1937 (New Zealand) and 1938 (Cambridge).

He was a research fellow at Clare College, Cambridge 1937-1939, head of chemistry at Bradford 1939-1946, taught at Bedford College, University of London 1946-1948, professor of chemistry at University of Aberdeen 1948-54, and professor of physical chemistry at Imperial College, London 1954-76. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1956.^[1]

He wrote over 400 papers, 3 monographs and held 21 patents.^[1] Barrer was the first to create a synthetic zeolite with no naturally occurring counterpart, in 1948.^[3][4]

The Royal Society of Chemistry and the Society for Chemical Industry give a Richard Barrer Award every three years for work in porous inorganic chemistry.^[5]

He died on 12 September 1996 at Chislehurst, London from cancer.

References

1. Rees, Lovat V. C. (November 1998). "Richard Maling Barrer. 16 June 1910-12 September 1996". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 44: 36–49. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1998.0003. JSTOR 770229.
2. R. Ravishankar, Johan A. Martens, Pierre A. Jacobs, "The scientific legacy of the late Richard M. Barrer, FRS", Microporous Materials 03/1997; 8(s 5–6):283–284. doi:10.1016/S0927-6513(97)81638-0
3. Chrokendorff, Ib; Niemantsverdriet, J.W. (2007). Concepts of Modern Catalysis and Kinetics. John Wiley & Sons. p. 199. ISBN 978-3-527-31672-4.
4. Barrer, Richard M. (1948). "Synthesis of a zeolitic mineral with chabazite-like sorptive properties". Journal of the Chemical Society (Resumed) 33: 127–132. doi:10.1039/JR9480000127.
5. "Centenary Timeline". Imperial College, London. Retrieved 11 December 2013.