Professional biography:

Dr. Tahir Shah graduated from University of Salford with a BSc in Chemistry and Biochemistry and a PhD in Polymer Chemistry 1981. He carried on working at the same university as a Research Associate on the development of novel polymeric ion exchangers for the extraction of valuable trace metals from seawater and thermo-mechanical aspects of polymeric materials and cements. Dr. Shah then joined UMIST as a Senior Research Fellow and carried out research and teaching activities in Polymer Science and Technology. He was also a Senior Research Associate with the Imperial Chemical Industries and RTZ Chemicals. Here his main research focus was on the development of elastomeric materials, functionalised polymers and pressure sensitive adhesives. After five years at UMIST, he joined the British Textile Technology Group (BTTG) in Manchester as a Senior Scientist and Project Leader – leading the group's research and development activities in materials science; including fibre-matrix interactions in composite materials and novel bonding methods in nonwovens. His next employment was as a Research Advisor at SABIC R&D, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, working on the development of infrastructure and manpower to carry out research and development programmes in Polymer Science and Technology. Currently Dr. Shah is a member of the academic staff at Bolton University and his research has the underlying themes of Smart Materials and Technical Textiles. His research interests also include controlling polymer structure and morphology in order to manipulate material properties.

Current research interests:

• Structure–Property Relationships of polymers
• Investigations of the durability of polymers
• Elastomers for medical device applications
• Materials chemistry
• Smart materials and systems for thermophysiological comfort applications
• Multi-responsive nanogels
• Polymer-based drug release systems
• Technical textiles
• Conducting polymers and their applications in wearable electronics/Microsystems
• Novel devices for cancer detection
• Novel textile finishing, including plasma coatings
• Durability of geotextiles and geocomposites

Selected publications:

Chain transfer to polymer chain in emulsion polymerization of n-butyl acrylate studied by C¹³ NMR and GPC. Polymer Communications, Vol. 32(4) p97-103 (1991)

Geotextiles: A Growth Market for Technical Textiles, An extended review article published in Textile Intelligence (July 2002).

Recent Developments in the Design and Manufacture of Needlepunched Geotextiles, Asian Textile Journal, Volume 13, Issue 2, Pages 68-73 (2004).

Investigation of fibre reinforced mud brick as a building material. Construction and Building Materials, Volume 19, Issue 4,  Pages 313-318 (2005). 

Durability of concrete made with granite and marble as recycle aggregates. Journal of Materials Processing Technology (2007)

Mineralogy of plain Portland and blended cement pastes. Build. & Environ. (2007)

Curing of bromobutyl elastomer composition using a xanthogen polysulphide accelerator for medical drug delivery device applications. Journal of Applied Polymer Science, Vol. 106, 526–533 (2007)

Crosslinking Reaction Mechanism of Diisopropyl Xanthogen Polysulfide Accelerator in Bromobutyl Elastomer for Medical Device Applications, Journal of Applied Polymer Science, Vol. 107, 4013–4020 (2008)

Optimization of parameters for the production of needlepunched nonwoven geotextiles. Journal of Industrial Textiles (2008).

Extrusion of polyethylene through a square slot in rotating die systems. J. Applied    Polymer Science (in press)