The following example is one involving “Kennedy’s” almost exact copycatting of another researcher’s work.  If one takes a close look at the research reported by “Kennedy” they can come to a very quick conclusion of what the standard modus operandi is.  That is, conducting work almost identical to that of other investigators and/or stealing the ideas of others.*  From the foregoing blog posts it is obvious that a third track used by this individual is to falsify research data.  In regards to this latter strategy I was told that a female American student of his (who graduated around the time I was dismissed by “Kennedy” for refusing to falsify data) had in fact falsified the majority of experiments used in her dissertation.**  Subsequent blog postings will provide specific examples of ideas stolen by “Kennedy” and the copycatting aspect will only be secondary in terms of importance.

Recent “Kennedy” Copycatting Example

The area of using perfluoroarylated Lewis acid (PFLA) based initiators has been one of intense activity, especially during the 1990s up until recently.^1-46  One of the early innovators in this field is Dr. Tim Shaffer of Exxon Mobil who developed a number of PFLA based initiator systems for the polymerization of isobutene (IB).  One of the initiator systems Shaffer devised was based upon the salt [Et₃Si]⁺[B(C₆F₅)₄]^– which is formed by hydride abstraction from a silane (i.e., Et₃SiH) by [Ph₃C]⁺[B(C₆F₅)₄]^–.^40,42,43  This chemistry is well known (i.e., the driving force is formation of a stronger C-H bond from a weaker Si-H bond); however, it wasn’t until recently that such salts were shown to typically contain coordinated Et₃SiH.⁴⁷  Regardless, this system devised by Shaffer is one of very few initiator systems based on silanes for initiation of cationic polymerization.  Shortly after Shaffer’s disclosures (almost within the exact time frame) “Kennedy” reports an identical initiator system (i.e.,[Et₃Si]⁺[B(C₆F₅)₄]^–);^15,16,36 however, in this instance [Et₃Si]⁺[B(C₆F₅)₄]^– is generated in situ via the metathesis reaction between Li[B(C₆F₅)₄]^– and Et₃SiCl (in this case the triethylsilylium tetrakis(pentafluorophenyborate) salt is formed along with LiCl)!!!  I can assure you that Zhengjie Pi (aka, Jack) was intimately involved in devising this system.***  Even those readers who are not trained chemists will realize the chemical identity of the initiator system reported by “Kennedy” is identical to that originally invented by Shaffer and only differ slightly in the way that the ion pair is generated.  The likelihood of “Kennedy” developing an almost identical initiator system independently and at the same time as Shaffer is about the same as the reader winning the Powerball lotto jackpot, especially given the scarcity of Si based initiator systems for cationic polymerization.****

Footnotes 

* In later blog postings we are going to see that “Kennedy” not only has a habit of stealing ideas, but also has a habit of stealing the names of other people!

** Since this was conveyed to me by another “Kennedy” student I can only treat this as hearsay at the time of this writing.

*** It is believed that “Kennedy” had gained foreknowledge of Shaffer’s chemistry and tasked Jack Pi to develop a competing route that could be patented.   As I have mentioned several times earlier in this blog series, Jack was one of the few skilled chemists in the “Kennedy” group at that time and he was the only one who was specifically trained in silicon chemistry.  It is unknown if U. Akron filed patent applications on the copycatted invention made by “Kennedy”.  The author of this blog estimates that U. Akron has spent > $1×10⁶ on “Kennedy’s” patents!

**** The author of this blog has invented two of the ≈ 5-6 known (i.e., reported) Si based initiator systems.  Only one of these has the author of this blog reported which is patent pending and published.^48,49

References 

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