Kit Cummins delivers Malcolm Green Lecture

Professor Simon Aldridge FRS, Head of Inorganic Chemistry, presents the Malcolm Green Lecture plaque to Professor Kit Cummins.

Professor Christopher “Kit” Cummins, Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry at MIT, delivered the 2025 Malcolm Green Lecture this week on “Sustainable Production of Reduced Phosphorus Compounds". The biennial lecture honours the late Professor Malcolm Green FRS, former Professor of Inorganic Chemistry (1989–2004).

Prof Cummins described new methods for producing key phosphorus compounds directly from phosphate sources, potentially replacing the current energy-intensive industrial process that relies on white phosphorus. His group’s work explores alternatives such as trichlorosilane reduction and mechanochemical synthesis, offering safer, more sustainable routes to value-added phosphorus chemicals of commercial importance.