Rate My Professor Matt Unthank

Professor Matt Unthank is a Professor of Chemistry in the School of Geography and Natural Sciences at Northumbria University. He has an established track record in polymer, coatings, and surfaces research, with expertise in functional polymers for network forming reactions used in thermoset coatings and composites. This is evidenced by over 15 years of patents, publications, and speaker awards in the field. Unthank is a founding member of the Synthesis and Polymer Innovation (SPIN) centre at Northumbria University, which supports polymer, coatings, and composite scale-up and commercialisation projects with industrial partners. His research contributes to SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure.

Unthank's career encompasses industrial leadership roles, including Polymer Research Manager at AkzoNobel and Senior Process Chemist at GlaxoSmithKline, alongside academic appointments as a visiting academic at the University of Manchester and his current professorship at Northumbria University. He is an EPSRC Researcher in Residence Fellow with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (CPI and NCC) to develop sustainable high-performance composites and coatings. Additionally, he is a member of the EPSRC Early Career Forum (ECF) in Manufacturing Research and co-lead for the bulk chemical sector in the £5M EPSRC-TransFire Hub (EP/V054627/1), involving 12 academic institutions, over 100 companies, and 14 non-governmental organisations. In the last five years, he has secured grants from UKRI, EPSRC, DSTL, and OfWAT, collaborating with industrial partners such as AkzoNobel, Altana, Allnex, and Northumbrian Water. Key publications include 'pH-Responsive, Thermoset Polymer Coatings for Active Protection against Aluminum Corrosion' (Watson et al., ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2024), 'Recyclable thermosets based on modified epoxy-amine network polymers' (Anderson et al., Materials Horizons, 2023), 'Conversion of Contaminated Post-Consumer Polyethylene Terephthalate into a Thermoset Alkyd Coating Using Biosourced Monomers' (Thomas et al., ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2024), 'Synergistic depolymerisation of alginate and chitosan by high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) and pulsed electric fields (PEF) treatment in the presence of H2O2' (Rivero Ramos et al., Carbohydrate Polymers, 2023), and 'Nepenthes pitcher plant inspired bio-polymer embedded porous surfaces for oil aquaplaning' (Orme et al., Scientific Reports, 2026). His research outputs total 33, including 23 articles and 6 patents, with 682 citations.