Dr Donna Palmer

Donna has a PhD in Green and Sustainable Chemistry from the University of Leicester. Her research was in the area of novel solvents such as supercritical fluids and ionic liquids. During her PhD she graduated from the Socrates High Pressure Chemical Engineering Course with a diploma in high pressure chemical engineering. The course covered all aspects of high pressure technology from applications to practical and technical considerations.

She graduated with a Master of Chemistry honours degree, at the University of Leicester in 2003. Her final year project was in Organic Synthetic Chemistry and involved the synthesis of a novel chiral electrophilic fluorinating agent. During her undergraduate studies she also participated in a summer research placement sponsored by Exxon Mobile.

Since joining Pera in 2006 Donna has project managed a number of EC and TSB projects. Following on from the PhD work, she is has managed projects which aim to apply supercritical fluid processing techniques. Examples include the production of renewable bio-degradable packaging from starch, extraction of pigments from waste plastics in order to reuse polymeric materials and development of a novel in-situ sampling and analysis method for contaminated land. In her current role at Pera Donna runs the Chemistry and Biotechnology team. Projects currently within her division include a project to identify safer alternative replacement for thiourea based accelerators for curing of rubber and development of a catalyst for the removal of arsenic from potable water.

Donna is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC), currently working towards Charted Chemist status and an Affiliate Member of the Institute of Physics.