Professor John Atherton

Prof John Atherton has over 37 years Industrial experience, most of them in process development, starting with ICI, and more recently with Zeneca and Avecia. Since his retirement John has delivered training courses and has worked as a consultant for a number of companies. He has lectured widely at events associated with process development and with organic mechanisms, most recently at the SCI Process Development conference in Cambridge in December 2005. In 2004 John was appointed Visiting Professor at The University of Huddersfield, working particularly with the IPOS group. He is co-author of the textbook 'Process Development: Physicochemical Concepts' and has authored or authored 31 papers, 8 review articles and 24 patents.

Following five years leading a group developing continuous process technology, he was for 23 years responsible for a Physical Organic Chemistry Group, whose rationale was to develop and assist in the development of efficient processes by the application of physicochemical thought processes and experimental techniques. During this time he developed and presented extensive training materials aimed at developing skills in physical organic chemistry relevant to chemical process technology.

2012

Ji, P., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2012) ‘Copper catalysed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) in liquid ammonia’ Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry , 10 (39), pp. 7965-7969. ISSN 1477-0520

Ji, P., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2012) ‘Copper(I)-Catalyzed Amination of Aryl Halides in Liquid Ammonia’ The Journal of Organic Chemistry , 77 (17), pp. 7471-7478. ISSN 0022-3263

Powles, N., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2012) ‘Reactive intermediates in the H-phosphonate synthesis of oligonucleotides’ Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry , 10 (30), pp. 5940-5947. ISSN 1477-0539

Ji, P., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2012) ‘Organic reactivity in liquid ammonia’ Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry , 10 (30), pp. 5732-5739. ISSN 1477-0520

2011

Ji, P., Powles, N., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2011) ‘Ionization of Carbon Acids in Liquid Ammonia’ Organic Letters , 13 (22), pp. 6118-6121. ISSN 1523-7060

Atherton, J. and Hall, A. (2011) ‘Scale-up – How do we get it right first time?’ Chemistry Today , 29 (4), pp. 47-49. ISSN 0392-839X

Atherton, J., Houson, I. and Talford, M. (2011) ‘Understanding the Reaction’. In: Process Understanding. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH. pp. 87-125. ISBN 9783527325849

Ji, P., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2011) ‘The Kinetics and Mechanisms of Aromatic Nucleophilic Substitution Reactions in Liquid Ammonia’ The Journal of Organic Chemistry , 76 (9), pp. 3286-3295. ISSN 00223263

Ji, P., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2011) ‘Liquid Ammonia as a Dipolar Aprotic Solvent for Aliphatic Nucleophilic Substitution Reactions’ The Journal of Organic Chemistry , 76 (5), pp. 1425-1435. ISSN 00223263

Atherton, J (2011) ‘Physicochemical Data Requirements for the Design of Fine Chemicals Processes: Acquisition and Application’. In: Pharmaceutical Process Development. Current Chemical and Engineering Challenges. Cambridge UK: RSC. pp. 178-206. ISBN 978-1-84973-146-1

2010

Ji, P., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2010) ‘The kinetics and mechanisms of organic reactions in liquid ammonia’ Faraday Discussions , 145, pp. 15-25. ISSN 1359-6640

2009

Russell, M., Laws, A., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2009) ‘The kinetics and mechanism of the acid-catalysed detritylation of nucleotides in non-aqueous solution’ Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry , 7 (1), pp. 52-57. ISSN 1477-0539

2008

Russell, M., Laws, A., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (2008) ‘The mechanism of the phosphoramidite synthesis of polynucleotides’ Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry , 6 (18), pp. 3270-3275. ISSN 1477-0539

2007

Hanusek, J., Russell, M., Laws, A., Jansa, P., Atherton, J., Fettes, K. and Page, M. (2007) ‘Mechanism of the sulphurisation of phosphines and phosphites using 3-amino-1,2,4-dithiazole-5-thione (Xanthane Hydride) ’ Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry , 5 (3), pp. 478-484. ISSN 1477-0539

2006

Atherton, J (2006) ‘Reaction kinetics in multiphase systems’. In: The Investigation of Organic Reactions and Their Mechanisms. London, UK: Blackwell. pp. 104-126. ISBN 9781405131421

1998

Heathcote, D., Atherton, J., De Boos, G. and Page, M. (1998) ‘Kinetics of ionisation of 3-phenylcoumaran-2-one and reprotonation of the resulting carbanion’ Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions 2 (3), pp. 541-546. ISSN 1472-779X

Heathcote, D., De Boos, G., Atherton, J. and Page, M. (1998) ‘Mechanism of hydrolysis of coumaran-2-ones’ Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions 2 (3), pp. 535-540. ISSN 1472-779X