Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

The 1^st International Summer School On Thermoelectrics was held July 25^th – 27^th in Golden Colorado USA. The conference was organized by Prof. Eric Toberer (Colorado School of Mines) and Prof. Alexandra Zevalkink (Michigan State University).

The 75 attendees discussed the fundamental properties of thermoelectric materials with speakers from National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Georgia Tech, Duke University, University of California Santa Barbara, University of California Davis, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, and Northwestern University.

The three day school covered topics ranging from the physics of thermoelectric materials to materials synthesis to practical module design. Brenden Ortiz (Colorado School of Mines) received the Journal of Materials Chemistry A poster award for best overall presentation.

(From left to right: JMC A's Associate Editor, Michael Chanbinyc with Brenden Ortiz (Colorado School of Mines, USA))

Journal of Materials Chemistry A will be supporting the 6^th Interdisciplinary Symposium on Materials Chemistry (ISMC–2016) which will take place from the 6^th – 10^th December, 2016 in Mumbai, India.

ISMC–2016, is being jointly organized by the Society for Materials Chemistry (SMC) and Chemistry Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, Mumbai, India and is sponsored by the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). It will focus on contemporary research in the field of materials chemistry. The deliberations of the symposium will cover the following topics:

• Nuclear materials
• High purity materials
• Nanomaterials and clusters
• Carbon based materials
• Fuel cell materials and other electro‐ceramics
• Biomaterials
• Polymers and Soft condensed matter
• Materials for energy conversion
• Thin film and surface chemistry
• Magnetic materials
• Catalysis
• Chemical sensors
• Organic and organometallic compounds
• Computational materials chemistry
• Hybrid material and composites

Deadline for submissions: 10^th August 2016

Further information can be found on the website.

The International Symposium on Next-Generation Solar Cells and Solar Energy Conversion will be taking place from the 21^st – 24^th November 2016 at the National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

The event is jointly organised by the National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and coincides with the 120^th anniversary of NCTU and the 175^th anniversary of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The objectives are to allow researchers to explore new technologies for the next-generation of solar cells and to share research ideas and results on the latest advances in solar energy conversion. It is hoped that this will lead to new collaborations and partnerships between the scientists involved. Our Programme Manager for International Engagement, Kathleen Too, will be in attendance as conference co-organiser.

Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Journal of Materials Chemistry C will be sponsoring the event by providing a total of 6 poster prizes with certificates and one year free online access to the respective journal for the winners and the Royal Society of Chemistry is also supporting several of the UK speakers to participate in this symposium.

Further details including early bird registration which runs out on the 31^st July and abstract submission can be found on the conference website.

Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Materials Horizons will be supporting this year’s Organic & Perovskite Solar Cells Conference which takes place in Herakion, Greece from the 19^th – 20^th October. Both journals will be providing poster prizes and awarding certificates and free online journal access to the winners.

‘The conference aims to centralize the participants’ interest by presenting the most recent attainments, highlights, current challenges and perspectives, conclusions and suggested future works in Organic and Hybrid Solar Cells Technologies.’

Topics included for discussion are:

• Organic solar cells (OSCs)
• Perovskite solar cells (PeSCs)
• Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs)
• Material synthesis of organic and perovskite absorbers
• Interfacial engineering of solar cells
• Fundamental physics and photophysics
• Theoretical modelling of materials and devices
• Characterization and measurement techniques
• Lifetime and device stability
• Scale up and commercial development

Speakers include Materials Horizons’ Scientific Editor, Professor Thuc-Quyen Nguyen (University of California Santa Barbara, USA) and Professor Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland).

Further details such as abstract deadline and early bird registration can be found on the RSC events website and on the official conference website.

The UK Society for Biomaterials will be holding their 15^th annual conference from the 30^th June – 1^st July at the University of Westminster, London.

Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Biomaterials Science will be providing sponsorship in the form of a poster prize certificate and a year’s free access to the journal.

Professor Ipsita Roy from the University of Westminster is organising the conference and has included some special features for this year which are below:

• A dedicated Larry Hench session;
• ReBiostent session (an EU FP7 project); (on biodegradable drug eluting stents)
• KTN session dedicated to the industry/clinicians and
• A dedicated cell oriented session for TCES/ECPS members.

Professor Roy intends to promote a ‘varied experience of both excellent research in the area of biomaterials including state of art, innovative work with synthetic and natural polymers, complemented with their application in the production of near to market products including medical devices, tissue engineering scaffolds and controlled delivery constructs’. Further details about the conference and Professor Roy’s full statement can be found here.

Journal of Materials Chemistry B & Journal of Materials Chemistry C will be providing sponsorship in support of the the upcoming 8^th International Conference on Molecular Electronics (ElecMol) which will be held in Paris, France from the 22^nd – 26^th August, 2016. The sponsorship comes in the form of poster prizes with the winner being awarded a certificate and one year’s free online access to the journal.

The conference intends to allow for researchers from all over the world and top-level plenary and keynote speakers to interact and discuss recent advances in the field of molecular electronics. It will also present an opportunity for collaboration between academics and private partners at the highest level. The conference will focus on recent advances in molecular and organic electronics in the fields of:

T1 – Single Molecules & Quantum Dots: Junctions/Memories & Switches
T2 – Organic Electronics and Spintronics: Materials & Devices
T3 – Organic Optoelectronics & Photonics: Materials & Devices
T4 – 2D materials, Nanotubes & Nanowires
T5 – Self-Assembly & Supramolecular Architectures
T6 – Scanning Probe Microscopies & Near Field Approaches
T7 – Molecular Theoretical Modelling
T8 – Bioinspired Approaches & Biomimetic Devices

Further such as registration and abstract submission can be found on the website.

Journal of Materials Chemistry C would like to congratulate Dr. Görkem Günbas on his Flash Talk prize win at the International Workshop on Advanced Materials and Processes for Energy Applications which took place in Istanbul on the 20^{th –} 24^th April, 2016 and was sponsored by JMC C. His prize included a certificate and one year’s free access to JMC C.

The workshop was organised by Imperial College London (UK) and Meliksah University (Turkey) with the aim of bringing together leading academics, experienced researchers, early stage research scholars and industrial partners in sustainable energy together to discuss and share their experiences and research about all aspects of Advanced Materials and Processes for Energy Applications. Speakers from both institutions attended and included workshop coordinator, Professor Iain McCulloch (Imperial College London).

Further information about the workshop can be found on their website.