Douglas Loy

Douglas Anson Loy is Full Professor at the University of Arizona. Loy is known world-wide for his contributions to polymer synthesis and sol-gel science: his discovery and development of bridged polysilsesquioxanes, thermally reworkable thermosets, polymeric sunscreens and antioxidants, high temperature stable polyarylene polyelectrolyte membranes, and new polymers for additive manufacturing. Prior to the University of Arizona, he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Labs and a Team Leader at Los Alamos National Lab. He holds 26 U.S. patents with another 10 applications in progress. He was one of the co-founders of Energy Materials Corporation with a focus on new fuel cell membranes. He has published 130 peer reviewed publications that have been cited more than 7400 times (Hirsch Index 37). He is a member of the University of Arizona's Bio5 Center and is an Arizona Center for Accelerated BioMedical Innovation (ACABI) Fellow in recognition of his contributions to new materials development for medical applications. His discovery and work in bridged polysilsesquioxanes have led to more than 8000 publications by his peers and hundreds of millions of dollars per year in new product sales (based on liquid chromatographic materials alone). His inventions of removable or reworkable thermosets while at Sandia Labs have been widely used to encapsulate electronics in aerospace applications. He developed a new class of fuel cell membranes with a significantly higher maximum operational temperature and higher ion conductivity (than the standard, Nafion) that will permit fuel cells to operate with technical grade hydrogen. Loy's polymeric sunscreens and antioxidants reduce the use of harmful additives to plastics and significantly reduce exposure to and environmental contamination by potentially harmful organic sunscreens. Loy is a member of the American Chemical Society, the Materials Research Society, the Association for the Advancement of Science, and Sigma Xi.