Professor John Sherwood: An appreciation ORGANIC crystalline materials are ubiquitous in our everyday life, from pharmaceuticals, fuels and soap and candles to chocolate and ice cream, crop protection products and electro-optic materials. Crystals are periodic structures of 3D ordered molecules, though they can be imperfect due to missing or misplaced molecules or the same when dimensionally extended. Such defects are highly important as they affect the material’s properties and, hence, performance. Understanding, characterising and defining the crystal growth of these materials and, in particular, the pivotal inter-relationship between their growth conditions, defect types and resulting properties owes so very much to the seminal work, spanning six decades, of Professor John N Sherwood of the University of Strathclyde, who died, aged 87, last month.
John Sherwood obituary
John Sherwood established the first research centre into the growth and perfection of organic crystals, at Strathclyde University, where he was professor of chemistry from 1977
John Sherwood established the first research centre into the growth and perfection of organic crystals, at Strathclyde University, where he was professor of chemistry from 1977
KevinRoberts
Thu 7 Jan 2021 06.05 EST
Last modified on Wed 10 Mar 2021 14.05 EST
My friend and colleague John Sherwood, who has died aged 87, was an academic physical chemist who made a huge contribution to the understanding of organic crystals and their imperfections.
Organic crystals are ubiquitous in our everyday life: in pharmaceuticals, fuels, soap, candles, chocolate, ice-cream, agrochemicals, explosives and fibre-optic components. John studied the imperfections in such crystals and how these affected their performance and effectiveness, and was involved in creating ultrapure, perfect and large (great