Professor Andrew Livingston FREng FRS

Andrew Livingston is a chemical engineer whose research focusses on molecular separations, crucial to all chemical production processes. He has created new membranes able to discriminate between solute molecules present in organic liquids, and pioneered applications from refining crude oil through to the purification of high value pharmaceuticals. Membranes offer more straightforward separations with lower energy consumption than traditional processes such as adsorption, chromatography and solid phase synthesis.


Andrew was born in New Zealand, where he studied chemical engineering and then worked in industry before his PhD, followed by an MSc in Economics, in the UK. His academic career has been complemented through founding Membrane Extraction Technology Ltd. to manufacture solvent stable membranes, and more recently Exactmer Ltd. Focussed on manufacture of polymeric medicines.


He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2004, and was awarded their Silver Medal in 2009 for contributions to membrane technology. In 2016 he was awarded the Underwood Medal of the IChemE for contributions to separations research, and a Research Excellence Medal by Imperial College in 2017.

Professional position

  • Director, Evonik Membrane Extraction Technology Ltd
  • Vice Principal Research and Innovation and Professor of Chemical Engineering, Queen Mary University of London
  • Chief Executive Officer, Exactmer Limited

Subject groups

  • Chemistry

    Chemistry, applied

  • Engineering and Materials Science

    Engineering, chemical