The Royal Society of Chemistry has honoured Dr Eric Mayes with its Chemistry Entrepreneur of the Year prize.

While studying for his PhD in Bath, Eric Mayes co-founded a company called NanoMagnetics Ltd when he invented a method to increase the amount of data stored on magnetic storage media. NanoMagnetics now designs and manufactures advanced magnetic particles for the flexible disc and tape industry. Their particle system pushes information storage density to levels unattainable by any other particle system using conventional read-write head technology. In 1999 NanoMagnetics Ltd relocated to Bristol University’s Department of Physics where it remained for three years before moving out to its current location at Emerson's Green, north of Bristol.

Dr Mayes said: ‘I am really thrilled to receive this prize, which is also an acknowledgement of the support given to the company by the University of Bristol. Hopefully our success and ties with the University will continue to grow.’

The award was given through the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Industry and Technology Forum and was in recognition of the great strides Dr Mayes' company NanoMagnetics has made towards turning innovative research into a commercial product.