Colin Raston

Colin Llewellyn Raston AO
Education	BSc(Hons), PhD, DSc
Alma mater	University of Western Australia Griffith University
Occupation	academic
Known for	green, macrocyclic, and organometallic chemistry
Title	Professor of Chemistry, Griffith University (1988–1994) Profesor of Chemistry, Monash University (1995–2000) Professor of Chemistry, The University of Leeds (2001–2002) Profesor of Chemistry, The University of Western Australia (2003–2012) Professor of Clean Technology, Flinders University (2013– )
Awards	Burrows Award, 1994 H G Smith Memorial Medal, 1996 Green Chemistry Challenge Award, 2002 Leighton Memorial Medal, 2006 RACI Living Luminary, 2011 South Australia Premier's Professorial Research Fellow in Clean Technology, 2013 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2015 Officer of the Order of Australia, 2016

Colin Llewellyn Raston AO is a Professor of Chemistry of Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia and the Premier's Professorial Fellow in Clean Technology. In 2015, he was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in "for inventing a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg." In 2016, Raston was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to science.

Raston undertook his early tertiary studies at the University of Western Australia, taking a bachelor degree in science with honours and a doctor of philosophy under Professor Allan White. Raston's work included looking at marine organoarsenic compounds, isolating arsenobetaine from the Western Rock Lobster and determining its structure and synthesis. This zwitterionic substance turns out to be the main source of arsenic in fish and unlike other arsenic compounds (like dimethylarsine and trimethylarsine) it has comparatively low toxicity. Arsenobetaine is an analog of betaine (trimethylglycine) and with similar biosynthesis to choline and betaines.

He later received a higher doctorate (Doctor of Science) from Griffith University.

Resorcinarene is a macrocycle typically prepared by the condensation of resorcinol and formaldehyde in an acidic environment. Multiple isomers are possible when any other aldehyde is used and different conditions, including Lewis acid catalysis have been employed to minimise by-products. Raston and co-workers have developed an alternative green chemistry solvent-free approach whereby resorcinol and the aldehyde are ground together with p-toluenesulfonic acid in a mortar and pestle and the product recrystallised from the resulting paste.

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