Professional

Endeavour Research Fellowship (2015)

Research Interests

  • Biopolymers
  • Analytical chemistry
  • Renewable plastics
  • Biodegradable plastics 

Publications

Lena, J-B, Goroncy, AK, Thevarajah, JJ, Maniego, AR, Russell, GT, Castignolles, P & Gaborieau, M 2017, 'Effect of transfer agent, temperature and initial monomer concentration on branching in poly(acrylic acid): A study by C-13 NMR spectroscopy and capillary electrophoresis', POLYMER, vol. 114, pp. 209-220.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Thevarajah, JJ, Van Leeuwen, MP, Cottet, H, Castignolles, P & Gaborieau, M 2017, 'Determination of the distributions of degrees of acetylation of chitosan', INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL MACROMOLECULES, vol. 95, pp. 40-48.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Thevarajah, JJ, Bulanadi, JC, Wagner, M, Gaborieau, M & Castignolles, P 2016, 'Towards a less biased dissolution of chitosan', ANALYTICA CHIMICA ACTA, vol. 935, pp. 258-268.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Thevarajah, JJ, O'Connor, MD, Castignolles, P & Gaborieau, M 2016, 'Capillary Electrophoresis to Monitor Peptide Grafting onto Chitosan Films in Real Time', JOVE-JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS, no. 116.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Thevarajah, JJ, Sutton, AT, Maniego, AR, Whitty, EG, Harrisson, S, Cottet, H, Castignolles, P & Gaborieau, M 2016, 'Quantifying the Heterogeneity of Chemical Structures in Complex Charged Polymers through the Dispersity of Their Distributions of Electrophoretic Mobilities or of Compositions', ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, vol. 88, no. 3, pp. 1674-1681.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Taylor, DL, Thevarajah, JJ, Narayan, DK, Murphy, P, Mangala, MM, Lim, S, Wuhrer, R, Lefay, C, O'Connor, MD, Gaborieau, M & Castignolles, P 2015, 'Real-time monitoring of peptide grafting onto chitosan films using capillary electrophoresis', ANALYTICAL AND BIOANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, vol. 407, no. 9, pp. 2543-2555.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Sutton, AT, Read, E, Maniego, AR, Thevarajah, JJ, Marty, J-D, Destarac, M, Gaborieau, M & Castignolles, P 2014, 'Purity of double hydrophilic block copolymers revealed by capillary electrophoresis in the critical conditions', JOURNAL OF CHROMATOGRAPHY A, vol. 1372, pp. 187-195.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Thevarajah, JJ, Gaborieau, M & Castignolles, P 2014, 'Separation and Characterization of Synthetic Polyelectrolytes and Polysaccharides with Capillary Electrophoresis', Advances in Chemistry, vol. 2014, pp. 1-11.View/Download from: Publisher's site

View description

The development of macromolecular engineering and the need for renewable and sustainable polymer sources make polymeric materials progressively more sophisticated but also increasingly complex to characterize. Size-exclusion chromatography (SEC or GPC) has a monopoly in the separation and characterization of polymers, but it faces a number of proven, though regularly ignored, limitations for the characterization of a number of complex samples such as polyelectrolytes and polysaccharides. Free solution capillary electrophoresis (CE), or capillary zone electrophoresis, allows usually more robust separations than SEC due to the absence of a stationary phase. It is, for example, not necessary to filter the samples for analysis with CE. CE is mostly limited to polymers that are charged or can be charged, but in the case of polyelectrolytes it has similarities with liquid chromatography in the critical conditions: it does not separate a charged homopolymer by molar mass. It can thus characterize the topology of a branched polymer, such as poly(acrylic acid), or the purity or composition of copolymers, either natural ones such as pectin, chitosan, and gellan gum or synthetic ones.

Lefay, C, Guillaneuf, Y, Moreira, G, Thevarajah, JJ, Castignolles, P, Ziarelli, F, Bloch, E, Major, M, Charles, L, Gaborieau, M, Bertina, D & Gigmes, D 2013, 'Heterogeneous modification of chitosan via nitroxide-mediated polymerization', POLYMER CHEMISTRY, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 322-328.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Mnatsakanyan, M, Thevarajah, JJ, Roi, RS, Lauto, A, Gaborieau, M & Castignolles, P 2013, 'Separation of chitosan by degree of acetylation using simple free solution capillary electrophoresis', ANALYTICAL AND BIOANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, vol. 405, no. 21, pp. 6873-6877.View/Download from: Publisher's site

Bhullar, K, Thevarajah, J, Rebmann, A, Cheevers, S, Wuhrer, R, Castignolles, P & Gaborieau, M 2018, 'Characterisation of industrial adhesives with (solid-state) NMR spectroscopy', ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 255th National Meeting and Exposition of the American-Chemical-Society (ACS) - Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water, AMER CHEMICAL SOC, New Orleans, LA.

Thevarajah, J, van Leeuwen, M, Heuls, M, Rouilly, A, Ward, R, Gilbert, E, Graf, R, Castignolles, P & Gaborieau, M 2018, 'Insights into the heterogeneity of polysaccharides with solid-state NMR spectroscopy', ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 255th National Meeting and Exposition of the American-Chemical-Society (ACS) - Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water, AMER CHEMICAL SOC, New Orleans, LA.