The Society's 2006 Josef Loschmidt Prize, which includes an award of £2000, was made to Dr Bill Bentley of the University’s Chemistry Department.

Dr Bentley, who lives in Dunvant, Swansea, was recognised for his research excellence in physical organic chemistry, which can be explained as using mathematical data to interpret how organic materials such as medicines, plastics, and perfumes behave.

The award’s official citation read, “for contributions to the understanding of mechanism and reactivity in organic chemistry, including reaction kinetics, solvent effects and phase-transfer catalysis.”

Dr Bentley said: “I’m very pleased to have received this award and recognition for my academic and industrial research. Some of the research we as a team at the Department of Chemistry have undertaken led to a commercial process. Several aspects of our research have also appeared in texts for teaching, which now inform current Chemistry students.”

Professor Keith Smith, Director of the Centre for Clean Chemistry and Head of Department of Chemistry at Swansea, added: “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Bill on his well-deserved success. He has made major contributions to the teaching and research of our department for over 30 years and it is great that he has been recognised publicly in this way. His work, which has had both academic and commercial importance, is of outstanding quality.”

The RSC is the largest organisation in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences and Dr Bentley’s award makes this the fourth RSC research award for the department since 2002.

Previous Royal Society of Chemistry award recipients from the department include Professor Keith Smith for the Green Chemistry Medal, Dr Robert Ward for the Bader Prize and Dr Karla Newman for the Belcher Memorial Prize.

For further information visit the Royal Society of Chemistry.