Andrea Sella
Professor Andrea Sella is on a mission to get us to understand chemistry and the often hidden impact it has on our lives.
He does this by telling chemical stories illustrated with demonstrations, and by contributing to a wide range of TV and radio programmes. By birth Italian, he was educated in the US, Kenya, Canada (where he studied with Robert H Morris) and the UK where he did his PhD in organometallic chemistry with Malcolm L H Green. He is professor of inorganic chemistry at University College London, working primarily on materials synthesis and increasingly, Citizen Science. He is heavily involved in developing new teaching strategies and in reducing the environmental impact both of his own Department and UCL as a whole. He is seldom seen without a pushbike, doesn’t drive, and seldom flies.
OpinionFermi’s questions and the importance of estimation
Knowing how to approximate the unknown is a much undervalued skill
OpinionHenninger and Le Bel’s fractionator and the importance of lab culture
An undercurrent of collaboration
OpinionCelebrating 200 editions of Classic Kit
Andrea Sella shares his favourite experiences from delving into the history of lab equipment
OpinionHarmoinen’s inverter drives and a crucial step towards reducing energy consumption
For the 200th Classic Kit, Andrea Sella celebrates a crucial efficiency improvement for motors
OpinionClevenger’s separator and the acceptance of grief
Numerous tragedies beset the life of Joseph Franklin Clevenger (1874–1945)
OpinionMarsh’s wires and the birth of the toaster
Raise a toast to the man who invented an essential alloy
OpinionNichols’ radiometer and discovering that radiation exerts pressure
A sensitive reflection of light pressure
OpinionLinnemann’s baskets and distillation in the early days of understanding equilibrium
A distillation method that came out in the wash
