Last year, as you may know, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B, and C celebrated their 10th anniversary! To join in the celebrations, we asked authors to find creative ways to add a ’10’ to the cover artwork and are excited to show you the latest results in our December monthly cover showcase.
To look back at all the celebrational activities, you can view the #JMCs10Years hashtag on Twitter.
Here are this month’s covers
This year, as you may know, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B, and C are celebrating their 10th anniversary! To join in the celebrations, we’ve asked authors to find creative ways to add a ’10’ to the cover artwork and are excited to show you the results in our monthly cover showcase.
To join in the celebration, you can view the #JMCs10Years hashtag on Twitter and follow the posts for the year so far.
Here are this month’s covers
Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C 10th Anniversary Community Spotlight Series
Celebrating our wonderful community in a series of spotlights
To celebrate the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C 10th anniversary, we have highlighted just some of the members of our community who have supported the journals over the past decade. We are pleased to have published 10 blogs showcasing different groups of our community, including Advisory and Editorial Board members, dedicated and first-time authors and outstanding reviewers.
Find all of our blogs here or check out each of our Community Spotlights individually below:
Thank you to our wonderful community for their support over the past decade! We hope that you enjoy reading our Community Spotlight series.
This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.
In this final blog of the series, we spotlight some more of our first time authors in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Journal of Materials Chemistry C who have published with us as corresponding authors during the anniversary year, and have had their work appear in our #MyFirstJMCA, #MyFirstJMCB or #MyFirstJMCC collections. We welcome our new community of authors and are pleased that they have chosen to publish with our journals. Find out about why they chose to publish with the Journal of Materials Chemistry family and read their first JMC publications below.
Dr Pallab Bhattacharya
Pallab Bhattacharya is a senior scientist in the Functional Material Group under Advanced Materials and Processes (AMP) Division in CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory and is an Assistant Professor at the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) at CSIR, India. He received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, India and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) and Chonbuk National University (CBNU) of South Korea. His research interests include design and development of various energy materials includes nanomaterials, 2D materials, and composites with focus on energy storage by supercapacitors and batteries. He is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships like DST INSPIRE FACULTY award by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India and National Eligibility test (NET) fellowship from Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), India. He is a member of the materials research society of India (MRSI). |
What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry C as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
Developing materials by tuning the chemistry to influence the property and application always remains fascinating to me. Journal of Materials Chemistry C is one such journal that publishes innovative and high-quality research articles in this field. Our work was on the development of an energy storage material by an innovative approach and being published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C defines the quality of the work. Journal of Materials Chemistry C also acts very fast on the publication process which is highly helpful. Thanks to all the referees for their constructive and valuable feedback and for helping us to shape the quality of our published article.
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCC publication (DOI: 10.1039/D3TC02074F)?
Development of affordable green energy storage solutions is the need of the hour, and therefore, our constant effort is in function to make highly performing and affordable supercapacitors. In my first Journal of Materials Chemistry C, we introduced a controlled microwave-plasma induced single-step process to produce a N and P co-doped sheet-like multilayer graphitic carbon coupled with an ultrasmall nickel phosphate nanosphere-based composite electrode with optimized compositions to produce a remarkable capacitance with ultralong cycle life. This affordable supercapacitor works well in two different practical applications where a pulse oximeter measures readings multiple times and an LED board containing 28 red LEDs glows for several minutes on a single charge. This type of approach has been reported for the first time and thanks to the Journal of Materials Chemistry C for publishing this work. This approach may be further extended for developing different composites from different bio-wastes and transition metal precursors for energy applications.
Read Pallab’s Journal of Materials Chemistry C article:
Microwave-plasma induced one-step synthesis of Ni(PO3)2 nanosphere-loaded bio-waste derived N, P co-doped carbon for an asymmetric supercapacitor with prolonged life
Nisha Gupta and Pallab Bhattacharya
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023, 11, 13503-13517
Dr María J. Marín
 Dr Marín graduated with a PhD in Chemistry from the University of East Anglia (UEA, UK) in 2013 under the supervision of Prof Russell. From 2013 to 2017, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at UEA and John Innes Centre; and worked as a Development Scientist at Iceni-Glycoscience. She joined UEA as a Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry in October 2017 and her research focusses on the use of nanotechnology to address biological and biomedical problems. She has extensive experience in applying nanomaterials to biosensing, diagnostics, and drug delivery, and the effective use of modern spectroscopic techniques, both for materials characterisation and device tracking and readout. She was awarded the Roscoe Gold Medal for Chemistry and the Westminster Medal as the overall winner during the 2014 SET for Britain. She is passionate about Analytical Chemistry and its impact in the employability of the undergraduate students, and this is reflected in her contribution to the Analytical modules within the School of Chemistry at UEA. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the RSC journal Analyst, sits on the Advisory Committee of “Advanced Study Course on Optical Chemical Sensors (ASCOS)” European network, is a member of the RSC Analytical Division East Anglia Regional Committee, and is the Chemistry representative in the Executive Group of the Norwich Cancer Research Network. |
What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry B as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
When our paper that describes novel gold-based nanomaterials for applications in biology and medicine was ready for submission, Journal of Materials Chemistry B was our first choice. This is a prestigious and highly cited journal in the field of materials sciences, and we knew our paper would be fairly reviewed and, if accepted, highly cited by the scientific community. Publishing with this RSC journal has been an extremely pleasant experience. The communication was fluent, and the reviewing process was not lengthy. I was very impressed with the quality of the proofs sent by the editorial team of the journal and the overall publishing experience with Journal of Materials Chemistry B.
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCB publication (DOI: 10.1039/D3TB00103B)?
A major research direction in my group is the development of novel fluorescence-based molecular and nano-probes for the quantitative detection of intracellular analytes involved in disease states. Our #MyFirstJMCB publication (DOI: 10.1039/D3TB00103B) reports the first example of a two-photon gold nanoprobe (DANPY-NO@AuNPs) for the versatile intracellular detection and quantification of NO, with potential for the spatiotemporal monitoring of in vitro and in vivo NO levels. The nanoprobe, which can be synthesised in a reproducible manner and exhibits great stability when stored at room temperature, is able to selectively detect NO in solution, with a dynamic range up to 150 µM, and at pH values of biological relevance. DANPY-NO@AuNPs, which showed negligible toxicity, were able to selectively detect endogenous NO in RAW264.7γ NO– macrophages, THP-1 human leukemic cells; and endogenous and exogenous NO in endothelial cells; and showed potential to quantify intracellular NO concentrations in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells.
Read María’s Journal of Materials Chemistry B article:
Gold nanoparticle-based two-photon fluorescent nanoprobe for monitoring intracellular nitric oxide levels
Carla Arnau del Valle, Paul Thomas, Francisco Galindo, María Paz Muñoz and María J. Marín
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2023, 11, 3387-3396
Dr Biplab Maji
 Dr. Biplab Maji completed his undergraduate studies in Chemistry at Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, affiliated with the University of Calcutta, India, in 2007. He went on to earn his M.Sc. degree in Chemistry from IIT Kanpur, India, in 2009. In 2012, he successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis under the mentorship of Prof. Herbert Mayr at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany. Subsequently, in 2013, he embarked on a post-doctoral fellowship in the lab of Professor Hisashi Yamamoto in Japan. In 2015, he conducted research as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, collaborating with Prof. Frank Glorious in Münster, Germany. In 2016, Dr. Maji joined the Department of Chemical Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata (IISER Kolkata), India, as an Assistant Professor and he was promoted to the position of Associate Professor in 2021. His group employs diverse catalytic strategies to tackle important chemical problems and develops new catalysts and reaction conditions with potential applications in biomass valorization, drug discovery, late-stage functionalizations, and biologically active compounds. His research team is actively involved in in-depth mechanistic studies, aimed at gaining a comprehensive understanding of how chemical reactions progress. |
What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry A as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
JMCA is one of the prestigious journals for high-quality research on materials and their application in energy and catalysis. The peer review process was fair, and its reviewers gave constructive and valuable feedback. Our investigation included both the novel material and its catalytic application in producing demanding organic compounds. This matched well with the scope of the journal for publication. Here, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the editors and reviewers for recognizing the suitability of our research for this journal. Overall, our experience was awesome.
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCA publication (DOI: 10.1039/D3TA03280A)?
We have synthesized a novel material named PKPOP. Its novelty comprised a fully conjugated porous organic polymeric framework containing olefin linkage and phosphorus as core ingredients. The PKPOP was leveraged on three binding sites (P, olefin, CN) to stabilize the palladium catalyst in different reaction stages. This helped it to be exploited in synthetically challenging and stereo-selective multicomponent dicarbofunctionalization reactions on unactivated alkynes to give trans-selective tetra-substituted alkenes. Its robustness and sustainability were shown in terms of producing a broad substrate scope with wide functionalities, maintaining high yields of the products without damaging the polymeric framework after multiple recyclabilities, and its turnover number and turnover frequency.
Read Biplab’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A article:
A phosphorus-based olefin linked fully conjugated polymeric ligand for palladium-catalyzed trans-selective dicarbofunctionalization of internal alkynes
Pramod Kumar and Biplab Maji
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 20752-20760
Dr Cristina Fornaguera
Dr Cristina Fornaguera defended her PhD in 2015, focusing on the development of polymeric NPs to cross the BBB. After, she worked as an industrial postdoc in the startup Sagetis Biotech, where she mastered her knowledge on synthesizing polymers for the controlled delivery of drugs and nucleic acids to efficiently cross the BBB, focusing her studies on the encapsulation of therapeutic RNAs. There, she had her first contact with industrial environment, acquiring expertise on the technology transfer. She then started her own research lines, focusing on the encapsulation of RNAs in pBAE polymers. Her wide experience of pBAE NPs has been recognized, not only by the numerous publications reporting pBAEs use for different biomedical applications, but also for the funding of national and international projects; as well as private projects with international biotech, pharma, cosmetic and veterinary companies. Currently, she leads a research group focusing on the design of novel nucleic acid based nanotherapies to tackle cancer, metabolic and brain diseases. |
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCB publication (DOI: 10.1039/D3TB00607G)?
My first Journal of Materials Chemistry B publication details the design of a novel family of poly(beta amino-ester) polymers functionalized with mannoses to achieve selective targeting. Given antigen presenting cells, namely macrophages, present a number of mannose receptors on their surface, our strategy looked for and demonstrated the selective targeting of nanoparticles to antigen presenting cells as well as their functionality, studied by the expression of the encoded mRNA. This is a proof-of-concept study demonstrating the potential of our polymers for immune modulatory applications.
What did you like most about the publication process with Journal of Materials Chemistry B?
Publishing with JMCB has been very easy and also fast, which is an important point to take into account. We received recommended revisions by reviewers that clearly demonstrated the integrity of experts in the field. Although they gave us more work, revisions helped a lot to improve our manuscript, thus contributing to the publication of a high standard of work by the journal. The process is rigorous and professional, not only from the scientific point of view, but also for the editing of the manuscript for publication.
Read Cristina’s Journal of Materials Chemistry B article:
Novel α-mannose-functionalized poly(β-amino ester) nanoparticles as mRNA vaccines with increased antigen presenting cell selectivity in the spleen
Nil González-Ríos, Margalida Artigues, Marta Guerra-Rebollo, Antoni Planas, Salvador Borrós, Magda Faijes and Cristina Fornaguera
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2023, 11, 6412-6427
Dr Daniel G. Araiza
Dr. Daniel G. Araiza works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Applied Science and Technology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (ICAT-UNAM) and belongs to the National System of Researchers (SNI). In 2021, he received his PhD degree in Materials Science from the Institute of Physics of UNAM. His research has focused on the synthesis of new catalytic materials to produce clean energy sources (hydrogen) through renewable resources (alcohols), as well as in the reduction of greenhouse gases (methane and carbon dioxide). His scientific work consists of 23 published articles (9 as first and 6 as corresponding author), with more than 350 cites. He is an active member of various scientific associations such as the North American Catalan Society (NACS) and the Materials Research Society (MRS). He received the LAAAMP scholarship to perform experiments at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), provided by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). |
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCA publication (DOI: 10.1039/D2TA09059G)?
The publication consists of a detailed investigation of different structural, electronic, and optical properties of doped sodium ferrites (NaFeO2), an affordable material with several applications; in this case, focusing on its CO2 capture properties. The novelty lies in the fact that, for the first time, these doped-ferrites were studied with a combined experimental and theoretical approach.
What did you like most about the publication process with the journal?
The reviewing process helped considerably to further improve the quality of the work. Besides, the editorial’s follow-up throughout the process helped the work to be published as soon as possible.
Read Daniel’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A article:
Unveiling the different physicochemical properties of M-doped β-NaFeO2 (where M = Ni or Cu) materials evaluated as CO2 sorbents: a combined experimental and theoretical analysis
Nayeli Gómez-Garduño, Daniel G. Araiza, Christian A. Celaya, Jesús Muñiz and Heriberto Pfeiffer
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 10938-10954
Thank you to our first time authors for choosing to publish with us!
We hope you enjoyed finding out about some of new community of authors in this final 10th Anniversary Community Spotlight blog of the series.
If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.
This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.
In this blog, we spotlight some of our first time authors in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Journal of Materials Chemistry C who have published with us as corresponding authors during the anniversary year, and have had their work appear in our #MyFirstJMCA, #MyFirstJMCB or #MyFirstJMCC collections. We welcome our new community of authors and are pleased that they have chosen to publish with our journals. Find out about what some of them had to say about their experience publishing with the journals for the first time and read their featured work below.
Dr Mohammad Taha
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Dr Taha is a multidisciplinary researcher exploring the frontiers of materials science, sustainability, and electronic engineering. With a passion for unravelling the mysteries of phase-changing materials, they strive to apply their findings in exciting fields like photonics, sensors, flexible electronics, and sustainable systems. Driven by the belief that a profound understanding of phenomena can unlock untapped potential, they are dedicated to delivering ground-breaking outcomes in their diverse areas of expertise.
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What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry A as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
I opted to submit my article to the Journal of Materials Chemistry A for several pertinent reasons. Primarily, I have a penchant for submitting to journals that have consistently served as dependable references during my research endeavours. Being a materials scientist and engineer, I have consistently found the articles in JMCA to be methodologically sound and intellectually stimulating, making it a journal I frequently consult. Furthermore, the journal’s thematic focus on innovative materials in the realms of energy and sustainability aligns seamlessly with both my current work and my envisioned future trajectory in the field.
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCA publication (DOI: 10.1039/D2TA09753B)?
My recent publication delves into the insulator-to-metal phase transition (IMT) observed in vanadium oxide polymorphs and how various structural strains influence it. Notably, the standard IMT behaviour manifests at 68 °C. In our research, we pioneer a dopant-free method to reduce the IMT temperature to approximately 40 °C, facilitating near-room temperature infrared modulation. This is achieved through a twofold approach: by precisely regulating the stoichiometry of the metal oxide to induce intrinsic strains, and by encasing the VOx particles in a SiO2 shell. The disparity in the thermal expansion coefficient between SiO2 and VOx exerts sufficient strain on the VOx, leading to a significant decrease in the IMT temperature.
Read Mohammad’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A article:
Infrared modulation via near-room-temperature phase transitions of vanadium oxides & core–shell composites
Mohammad Taha, Sivacarendran Balendhran, Peter C. Sherrell, Nick Kirkwood, Dingchen Wen, Shifan Wang, Jiajun Meng, James Bullock, Kenneth B. Crozierabe and Len Sciacca
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 7629-7638
Dr Biswanath Das
Dr. Biswanath Das is a permanent (senior) researcher and group leader at the Department of Organic Chemistry, at Stockholm University. He is an electrochemist with experience in organic-inorganic synthesis, investigation of reaction mechanisms, and electrode fabrication. His major research interest centers around finding efficient and sustainable resources for renewable energy, utilization of carbon dioxide as a C1 feedstock, and PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) remediation. Biswanath earned his bachelor’s (2007, Burdwan University) and master’s (2009, IIT Kanpur) degree in India and moved to Sweden as an Erasmus Mundus Ph.D. student and conducted Ph.D. studies (2009-2013) in Lund University under the supervision of Prof. E. Nordlander on bioinorganic chemistry. Thereafter, he joined Uppsala University as a postdoctoral fellow (2014-2016) and worked on water splitting in the group of Prof. S. Ott and A/Prof. A Thapper. In 2016, he was selected for a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship (ARC affiliated) from the School of Chemistry, UNSW, Australia. During 2016-2020, he worked on carbon dioxide electroreduction and PFAS degradation in the groups of A/Prof. S B Colbran, A/Prof. G E Ball and Prof. N Kumar before joining Stockholm University as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Em. Björn Åkermark in June 2020.
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What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry A as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
JMCA has a good reputation for publishing research works that are novel and highly important in the field of material chemistry. The articles published in JMCA usually attract a wide audience, which is important for the visibility of the research. We (myself, Assoc. Prof. O. Verho, and Prof. B. Åkermark) did not have any second thoughts while selecting JMCA as a suitable journal for our interesting results.
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCA publication (DOI: 10.1039/D3TA00071K)?
Sustainable production of green hydrogen (through water electrolysis) is one of the most important research areas of this century. This article represents the first example of a bifunctional and electrochemically regenerable molecular electrode that can be used for the unperturbed production of H2 from water at neutral pH. The special structural design of the electrode and the anchored molecular catalyst result in exciting stability and low overpotential for the electrochemical processes.
Read Biswanath’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A article:
Bifunctional and regenerable molecular electrode for water electrolysis at neutral pH
Biswanath Das, Esteban A. Toledo-Carrillo, Guoqi Li, Jonas Ståhle, Thomas Thersleff, Jianhong Chen, Lin Li, Fei Ye, Adam Slabon, Mats Göthelid, Tsu-Chien Weng, Jodie A. Yuwono, Priyank V. Kumar, Oscar Verho, Markus D. Kärkäs, Joydeep Dutta and Björn Åkermar
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 13331-13340
Dr Johanna Meyer
Dr. Johanna Meyer is a polymer scientist and a technical and applied chemist specialising in the development of materials for biomedical and technical approaches. After synthesizing and characterizing hydrogels, she continues to design them for various applications ranging from drug delivery and scaffold development to 3D printing of reactors. She received her PhD in 2021 from the Technical Chemistry group led by Prof. Udo Kragl at the University of Rostock (Germany) and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Technical Chemistry at the Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany).
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What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry B as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
The RSC journals are run with significant influence of the chemistry community, upholding high editorial standards, refined reviews, and a commitment to promote diversity. The Journal of Material Science B was particularly convincing with its very good selection of publications and its general scope, making it an optimal choice for our work on 3D‑printed drug delivery systems.
What did you like most about the publication process with the journal?
The quality and constructive approach of referees has provided very valuable feedback on the manuscript and has greatly helped to improve the final published paper. I am sincerely grateful to the referees for their expert input and constructive advice.
Read Johanna’s Journal of Materials Chemistry B article:
3D printed and stimulus responsive drug delivery systems based on synthetic polyelectrolyte hydrogels manufactured via digital light processing
Sonja Vaupel, Robert Mau, Selin Kara, Hermann Seitz, Udo Kraglbc and Johanna Meyer
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2023,11, 6547-6559
Dr Shwetharani R.
Dr. Shwetharani R is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Centre for Nano and Material Sciences at Jain Deemed to be University. Dr. Shwetha holds a PhD Degree in Chemistry (Material Sciences) from Jain Deemed to be University. Her research interests includes preparation and property tuning of semiconductor based nanomaterials, 2D materials MoS2, MoSe2, perovskite oxynitride/oxysulfide, MPX3 materials for H2/O2 evolution and also perovskite QDs property modification (CsPbX3), with a focus on renewable hydrogen generation and high PLQY perovskite QDs for sensing. She completed her postdoctoral stint at Shinshu University at Japan with the supervision of Prof. Kazunari Domen (2019-2020), as well as at Centre for Nano and Material Sciences at Jain Deemed to be University with the supervision of Prof. R Geetha Balakrishna (2016-2018) and has 7 years of experience in academia. She is passionate about development of new and efficient nanostructured materials for photo/electrochemical hydrogen/oxygen production. She believes in the power of collaboration and knowledge exchange to understand the problem in large scale production of hydrogen through economically viable process such as photocatalysis. She is a recipient of JAUW international fellowship from Japan and also received SERB-TARE project to conduct research with the supervision of Prof. S. Sampath at IISc, Bangalore (2020-2023). |
What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry C as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
Publishing in an international high standard journal is important in the academic field, JMCC is one such journal. The quality of the research papers are excellent and this inspired me to publish in JMCC.
What did you like most about the publication process with the journal?
The publication process is fast and genuine. The reviewers are well versed in their field and suggest important comments, which drastically improves the quality of the papers. The reviewers won’t compromise on the quality of the paper and will provide comments if the paper is not up to the standards of the journal (I have received such comments before).
Read Shwetharani’s Journal of Materials Chemistry C review:
Recent advances in ecofriendly 2D monoelemental bismuthene as an emerging material for energy, catalysis and biomedical applications
Shwetharani R., Itika Kainthla, Sumanth Dongre S., Laveena D’Souzac and R. Geetha Balakrishna
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023, 11, 6777-6799
Dr Dillip Panda
Dr. Dillip K. Panda is a Research Assistant Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Clemson University focussing on high-temperature solid-state lithium batteries and the development of various anode, cathode, and electrolyte materials for solid and liquid-based lithium-ion batteries. He obtained his Ph.D. under the tutelage of Prof. Gordon G Wallace, Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Dr. Panda then joined Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, Florida as a Postdoctoral Fellow where he worked on supramolecular dyad based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), MOFs, nanomaterials (both organic and Inorganic) and chemical sensors. Then he was a UMEI PISET fellow at the University of Michigan (UMich), where he worked on synthesis, modeling and fabrication and characterization of hybrid organic- inorganic perovskite materials for high efficiency solar-to-electrical energy conversion under Prof. Bartlet and Prof. Maldonado. More than 32 peer-reviewed publications have been published over the course of his career and three separate book chapters. Aside from serving as president of the Clemson University Postdoctoral Association from 2020 to 2022, Dr Panda received the Clemson University Distinguished Postdoctoral Award in 2022. Over the course of his diverse research career, he has developed a passion for establishing and implementing collaborative and interdisciplinary research, which is a challenging task for society’s energy needs. |
What made you choose Journal of Materials Chemistry A as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
Considering my field of research (materials and energy), I am very selective about which journals I submit my papers to. Journal of Materials Chemistry A is one of my favorite journals since it always publishes cutting-edge and innovative research related to energy. Journal of Materials Chemistry A reaches a large audience with a diverse background in engineering and science. The reviewers are also critical of the work and ensure it is of high quality with novelty and significant impact on the field during the revision process. We met the scope of the journal and had our work published.
Could you tell us a bit about your #MyFirstJMCA publication (DOI: 10.1039/D3TA01366A)?
I was delighted to see my article published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, since this article highlights Silicon oxyycarbide’s electrochemical performance as an anode material. Those interested in lithium-ion batteries and other electrochemical applications will find this paper titled ” A review of silicon oxycarbide ceramics as next generation anode materials for lithium-ion batteries and other electrochemical applications” useful for their research. In lithium-ion batteries, silicon oxycarbide ceramics with specific capacities ranging from 200 to 1300 mAh/g are promising anodes and this type of amorphous material can accommodate considerable volumetric strains, unlike crystalline silicon. In this article, we also discuss how SiOC’s electrochemical performance is affected by various factors, and how to overcome these factors. Having my first corresponding author publication in Journal of Materials Chemistry A makes me extremely happy. As such, I am incredibly proud of this work, and it is extremely special to me.
Read Dillip’s Journal of Materials Chemistry A review:
A review of silicon oxycarbide ceramics as next generation anode materials for lithium-ion batteries and other electrochemical applications
Ravindran Sujith, Jella Gangadhar, Michelle Greenough, Rajendra K. Bordiac and Dillip K. Panda
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 20324-20348
Thank you to our first time authors for choosing to publish with us!
We hope you enjoyed finding out about some of new community of authors. Keep an eye out for our final Community Spotlight in the series.
If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.
This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.
Next in our ‘Community Spotlight’ series, we feature some more of our wonderful Editorial Board members who have supported Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B or C over the years through guiding the growth and development of the journal and/or actively handling papers in their Associate Editor roles. Check out their interview responses below to find out what they like about being on the Editorial Board and how they think the field of materials chemistry will develop in the next 10 years.
Professor Dan Li
Dan Li is an Associate Editor of Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Materials Advances. He is currently a Professor and the Dean of College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Jinan University, and the Director of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Supramolecular Coordination Materials and Applications. He received his B. Sc. from Sun Yat-Sen University in 1984 and then worked at Shantou University. He pursued his Ph. D. at The University of Hong Kong with Professor Chi-Ming Che during 1988–1993. Then he returned to Shantou University and became Professor in 2001. He moved to Jinan University in Guangzhou in 2016. His research interest focuses the design and fabrication of supramolecular coordination assemblies and their functions based on photoluminescence, porosity, chirality and energy storage. He has authored and co-authored more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, J. Am. Chem. Soc, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. and J. Mater. Chem. A. He was a recipient of the National Science Found for Distinguished Young Scholars of China in 2008, Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2014, Ding Ying Science & Technology Award in 2019 and Guohua Outstanding Scholar of Jinan University in 2022. |
Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?
I would like to see that more and more new materials with diverse functions are developed for a better life and friendly environment. Innovations from Chemistry, Materials Science, Engineering and Artificial Intelligence will help to speed-up materials design, to optimize reaction processes and to create a more sustainable world.
Could you provide a brief summary of your most recent Journal of Materials Chemistry A publication?
In our recent paper (J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 12777–12783; DOI: 10.1039/d2ta08797a), we combine the chemistry of MOFs and COFs to successfully fabricate two Cu(I) cyclic trinuclear unit (Cu-CTU)-based covalent metal–organic frameworks (CMOFs) with similar two-dimensional structures. With a strategy of the steric modification of metal nodes, the resulting MOFs show differences in crystallinity, porosity, chemical stability and catalytic activity for hydroboration reactions. The development of advanced CTU-based CMOFs provides new opportunities for designing heterogeneous catalysts and paves a new way to rationally tune the catalytic performance of MOFs.
Professor Yusuke Yamauchi
Professor Yusuke Yamauchi received his Bachelor degree (2003), Master degree (2004), and Ph.D. (2007) from Waseda University (Japan). After receiving his Ph.D., he joined the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS) (Japan) to start his own research group. In 2016, he joined the University of Wollongong as a Full Professor. In 2017, he moved to the University of Queensland (UQ). Presently, he is a senior group leader and an ARC Laureate Fellow at AIBN and a full professor at School of Chem. Eng. in UQ. Professor Yamauchi is an Associate Editor of J. Mater. Chem. A and Chem. Eng. J. (Elsevier). He has published ~950 papers with >77,000 citations (h-index of 140) in the field of inorganic materials chemistry and inorganic synthetic chemistry. He has been recognized as Highly Cited Researchers in Chemistry (2016-2022) and Materials Science (2020-2022). |
Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?
The preparation of nanomaterials in the past decade has relied on trial-and-error approaches. In particular, for complex alloys, such as multimetallic or high entropy alloys where multiple elements are present in the system, the tuning of the synthesis and properties can be time consuming and costly as it would require hundreds or thousands of experiments to tune/optimize the ratio of the composing elements. In the next 10 years, I predict that artificial intelligence-driven machine learning would play a tremendous role in reducing the number of experiments required for tuning the properties and performance of complex nanomaterials.
As an Associate Editor, do you have any top tips for authors preparing their manuscript?
My tips for preparing manuscripts are:
Professor Oana Jurchescu
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Oana D. Jurchescu is a Baker Professor of Physics at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, USA and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. She received her PhD in 2006 from University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and then was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. Her expertise is in charge transport in organic and organic/inorganic hybrid semiconductors, device physics and semiconductor processing. She is the recipient of several awards, including the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, NSF (2013), the NSF special creativity award (2022), the Pegram Award from American Physical Society Southeastern Section for excellence in teaching and mentoring (2022) and several university awards. She is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry C since 2019 and serves as a member of the Advisory Board of Chemical Physics Reviews, Organic Electronics, and J. Phys Materials. |
What do you think of Journal of Materials Chemistry C as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?
Journal of Materials Chemistry C covers a wide range of topics in chemistry, physics, materials science, and engineering. This diversity of scope attracts a diverse readership of scientists from different backgrounds and with different perspectives. This exposure to a variety of viewpoints helps to ensure that the published work is of high quality and has a significant impact on the field.
Could you provide a brief summary of your most recent Journal of Materials Chemistry C publication?
In our manuscript “Charge carrier traps in organic semiconductors: a review on the underlying physics and impact on electronic devices” H. F. Haneef, A. M. Zeidell, O. D Jurchescu, J. Mater. Chem C 8, 759 (2020) we presented a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon of charge carrier trapping in organic semiconductors (OSCs). Trapping is a common occurrence in these materials, and the details of the nature, spatial distribution, and energetics of traps, as well as the timescales of trapping and detrapping events, can have a significant impact on the performance of organic optoelectronic devices.
Dr Subrata Kundu
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Dr. Subrata Kundu received his Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India in early 2005. Then he moved to University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA and later to Texas A &M University, College station, Texas, USA as a post-doc fellow (from 2005 to 2010). He is currently working as a Principal Scientist at CSIR-CECRI, Karaikudi, India. Dr. Kundu recently received prestigious FRSC (Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry) from London in 2023. Dr. Kundu is serving as an associate editor of prestigious ‘Journal of Materials Chemistry A’ and ‘Materials Advances’ from RSC publishers since 2022 and ‘Scientific Reports’ from ‘Nature group publishers’ since 2015. Dr. Kundu and his co-workers are working in the forefront area of Material Sciences with emphasizes on energy, environment, catalysis and electrocatalysis fields. |
What do you think of Journal of Materials Chemistry A as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?
I think Journal of Materials Chemistry A (JMC A) is a great place to publish impactful materials chemistry research. The journal has a strong editorial board and a rigorous peer-review process, which ensures that only high-quality research can be published.
Could you provide a brief summary of your most recent Journal of Materials Chemistry A publication?
In our last work, Ni3S4-functionalized 2D CoFe-LDH heterostructure nanosheet was designed for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in a wide pH range. The negatively polarized sulfide ions and improved magnetic ordering in active cobalt sites of the heterostructure enhanced the deprotonation of OH* intermediate and O2 desorption, respectively. As a result, the Ni3S4@CoFe-LDH heterostructure showed excellent OER performance with a low overpotential of 262 mV and a high specific turnover frequency (TOF) value of 4.93 s−1 (J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 16349-16362).
Professor Kasper Moth-Poulsen
Professor Kasper Moth-Poulsen is a research leader in the field of nano-chemistry, energy storage materials and synthetic chemistry. His research activities focus on the development of new solar energy storage technologies. He studied organic chemistry at the University of Copenhagen where he obtained the Cand. Scient. (2003) and Ph.D. (2007). In 2009, he continued his career abroad as a postdoctoral associate at the College of Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley, where he worked with professors Rachel Segalman and Peter Vollhardt. In 2011 Kasper was recruited to Chalmers University of Technology, as an assistant professor. In 2014 he was promoted to associate professor in 2017 to professor and in 2019 full professor. Since October 2021 Kasper has been awarded a professor position at the Catalan Institute of Advanced Studies (ICREA) and joins the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) as an ICREA research professor. In January 2023 he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya (UPC). Kasper is an Associate Editor of Journal of Materials Chemistry C, and Materials Advances. He is active in several start-ups and spin-out companies from his research group, including Con-Science AB, and NanoScientifica Scandinavica AB.
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What do you like most about being on the Editorial Board for Journal of Materials Chemistry C?
I am really enjoying contributing to all parts of the global scientific project from research to publishing. The Assoc. editor role give me the opportunity to contribute to the dissemination part. What I really enjoy when I get to handle a new paper is to try to solve the puzzle of identifying the best possible match of reviewers to the new piece of science.
As an Associate Editor, do you have any top tips for authors preparing their manuscript?
The essential thing is of course that you have a story to tell about an exciting piece of materials science. Think about all elements of the manuscript, how the introduction and figures complement this story in the best possible way.
Thank you to all of our dedicated Editorial Board members for their support of the Journal of Materials Chemistry family of journals over the years.
We hope you enjoyed finding out more about some of our Editorial Board members. Keep an eye out for our next ‘Community Spotlight’!
If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.
This year, as you may know, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B, and C are celebrating their 10th anniversary! To join in the celebrations, we’ve asked authors to find creative ways to add a ’10’ to the cover artwork and are excited to show you the results in our monthly cover showcase.
To join in the celebration, you can view the #JMCs10Years hashtag on Twitter and follow the posts for the year so far.
Here are this month’s covers:
This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.
Next in our ‘Community Spotlight’ series, we feature some more of our dedicated authors who have supported Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B or C by publishing regularly with us over the years. Check out their interview responses below to find out what they like about publishing with the Journal of Materials Chemistry family and how their work has evolved since their first JMC publication.
Professor Eli Zysman-Colman
Eli Zysman-Colman obtained his Ph.D. from McGill University in 2003 under the supervision of Prof. David N. Harpp as an FCAR scholar, conducting research in physical organic sulfur chemistry. He then completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one in supramolecular chemistry with Prof. Jay Siegel at the Organic Chemistry Institute, University of Zurich as an FQRNT fellow and the other in inorganic materials chemistry with Prof. Stefan Bernhard at Princeton University as a PCCM fellow. He joined the department of chemistry at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada as an assistant professor in 2007. In 2013, he moved to the University of St Andrews in St Andrews, UK, where he is presently Professor of Optoelectronic Materials, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a past holder of a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship. His research program focuses on the rational design of: (I) luminophores for energy-efficient visual displays and flat panel lighting based on organic light emitting diode (OLED) and light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEEC) device architectures; (II) sensing materials employed in electrochemiluminescence; and (III) photocatalyst developing for use in organic reactions. |
How has your research evolved from your first Journal of Materials Chemistry C article to your most recent publication in the journal?
I published my first J. Mater. Chem. C paper a decade ago in 2013 (10.1039/C3TC31307G). At the time, my research group was strongly focussed on the development of blue-emissive cationic iridium(III) complexes for use in light-emitting electrochemical cells. This particular study illustrated our design strategy for using triazole-based ligands about the iridium centre. Since that first paper, my group’s research interests have evolved, where we now focus considerable energy on the design and development of organic thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters for organic light-emitting diodes. In our latest publication in J. Mater. Chem. C (10.1039/D3TC02352D), my 16th in this journal, we studied the effect of nitrogen atom incorporation into orange-to-red donor-acceptor TADF emitters on their photo physical properties and their performance in OLEDs.
What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?
I have found J. Mater. Chem. C to be the ideal journal to spotlight our work on photoactive materials design. The quality of the articles, complemented by an excellent editorial and reviewing process, I have always found to be excellent. I like to support RSC journals in general, given their mandate to benefit the wider chemistry community.
Professor Akon Higuchi
Akon Higuchi is an Advisory Board member for Journal of Materials Chemistry B. He received his PhD from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1985. He was associate and full professor at Seikei University (Tokyo) until 2007. Since 2007, he became a Chair Professor at National Central University (Taiwan). He is also a visiting professor in Wenzhou Medical University. His current interests involve generation of universal human induced pluripotent stem cells, differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells on specific biomaterials, and preparation and application of lipid nanoparticles entrapped with mRNA. He is a fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and Taiwan Chemical Engineering Society. He was awarded the Sofue Memorial Award (1994), Seikei Academic Award (2003), Nanotechnology Outstanding Contribution Award (NSC, 2013), Gold Medal Award of 2021 Taiwan Innotech Expo Invention Contest (2021), and Outstanding Scientific Award of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society, Asia Pacific region (TERMIS-AP, 2021). |
What do you like most about Journal of Materials Chemistry B as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
JMC B is one of the top journals in the fields of biomaterial science and chemistry. Editors and reviewers in JMC B are high quality researchers. Therefore, my manuscripts are evaluated very fairly. The comments by reviewers and editors are very useful for my future research.
What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?
I had a great influence and an impact from my previous supervisor in England (Dr RFP Stepto, UMIST). He respected RSC. Therefore, it was my honor for me to publish my research in RSC journals starting from Faraday from my young carrier. Now my research mainly focuses on biomaterials and therefore, I keep publishing my research in JMC B.
Professor Tharamani Nagaiah
Tharamani C. Nagaiah is an Associate Professor and Head, Department of Chemistry at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar. She holds a PhD degree from Bangalore University and completed postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Saskatchewan, Canada and AvH postdoctoral fellowship at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Her research interests include design and development of various carbonaceous materials, nanomaterials, molecular catalyst with focus on energy conversion and storage, biosensors and in-depth fundamental analysis of the newly designed electrocatalysts towards fuel cells and batteries by various electrochemical, spectroscopic, microscopic and scanning probe techniques (SECM). She is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships like Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship, Germany and Ramanujan Fellowship by Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) admitted through the “Leaders in the field” scheme as an emerging talent in India and also an elected Fellow of Indian Chemical Society. She is a recipient of CRSI-Bronze Medal 2023 from the Chemical Research Society of India and Silver Medal of CRS 2023 from the society Chirantan Rasayan Sanstha, recently she has been awarded the ECSI Metrohm National Award 2023 from Electrochemical Society of India, A.V. Rama Rao prize for Women 2024 from Chemical Research Society of India. She is an Editorial Board Member of the Journal Electrocatalysis. |
What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?
I am very selective in submitting manuscript to journals. Journal of Materials Chemistry A is one among them which publishes high quality and cutting-edge research articles in the field of Materials Chemistry and Energy. Our work is well aligned with the scope of the journal and being published/publishing in Journal of Materials Chemistry A defines the quality of our work. Thanks to the referees for the constructive and valuable feedback on the work which has always helped us in shaping up the quality of our published articles.
Which of your Journal of Materials Chemistry A publications would you say you are most proud of and why?
I am proud of all my research articles published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, since each article has a different concept and novelty. However, the work on “Nitrogen containing carbon spheres as an efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction:Microelectrochemical investigation and visualization” is very special one. This work focused on the development of oxygen reduction reaction catalyst and its selectivity to H2O conversion was studied in depth by microelectrochemical approach using ultra-micro-electrode. This is my first publication in Journal of Materials Chemistry A as an independent researcher. Therefore it is very special to me and I am very proud of this work.
Professor Jie Zheng
Jie Zheng is a Professor of Chemical, Biomolecular, and Corrosion Engineering at the University of Akron. He earned his PhD from the University of Washington in 2005 and subsequently conducted 2-years postgraduate studies at the National Cancer Institute, NIH. He then joined the University of Akron since 2007. His research lab specializes in the development of advanced bio-inspired, bio-functional, and bio-mimetic soft materials for engineering and biomedical applications by combining machine-learning models, molecular simulations, and bio-related experiments. Zheng has received prestigious accolades throughout his career, including the NSF CAREER Award (2010), 3M Non-Tenure Faculty Award (2008), and Anton Award from the National Resource for Biomedical Supercomputing (2010), and has also been recognized multiple times as Top 2% of researchers worldwide in the field of Chemical Engineering and was elected an fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry in 2023. Zheng is author of 280+ journal papers, with a total citation of 20000+ times and an h-index of 75. |
What made you decide to keep publishing your work with the journal over the past years?
Over the years, my decision to continue publishing our work in the Journal of Materials Chemistry (JMC) has been driven by a series of significant milestones and a profound sense of belonging to the journal scientific community. It all began in 2014 when JMC expanded to three companion journals. We started on this journey by publishing our first paper in JMCB, which was chosen for the journal’s cover page, spotlighting our research on antifouling materials. Since then, we have published 31 papers in the JMC family, with 10 papers in JMCB, 6 invited reviews, 19 cover features, and 8 hot papers. These publications have predominantly focused on our research on amyloid diseases, smart hydrogels, and biomaterials. What truly sets JMC apart for me is the remarkable growth I have witnessed in our research journey alongside this journal. In 2017, I joined the Advisory Board of JMC B, where I have seen the journal commitment to accelerating scientific dissemination through a rigorous and equitable review process. Additionally, their dedication to recognizing and nurturing young, talented investigators is commendable. I strongly believe that the JMC family will persist as the flagship journals for disseminating high-impact research to the global scientific community.
How has your research evolved from your first Journal of Materials Chemistry B article to your most recent publication in the journal?
Our research has evolved significantly since our first publication in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B (DOI: 10.1039/c4tb00253a) in 2014, which focused on the binding properties of PEG antifouling materials and proteins, earning a place on the JMCB cover page. Subsequently, we expanded our research from antifouling materials to smart functional polymers and hydrogels. These materials were designed and synthesized to possess high mechanical properties and a wide range of functionalities, including self-recovery, self-healing, biocompatibility, mechanoresponse, freezing tolerance, conductivity, and interfacial adhesion, tailored for diverse applications. Moreover, our research has stretched even further, encompassing the investigation of native disease-related amyloid proteins linked to various neurodegenerative diseases. We combine a variety of biophysical techniques and computational approaches to examine the molecular mechanisms of protein misfolding, aggregation, and toxicity, design and discover novel molecules serving as amyloid inhibitors, develop multi-targeting biosensors for detecting amyloid proteins, and investigate the molecular links and spreading mechanisms between different diseases. Our findings have been published and highlighted in the JMC journal family, a testament to the growth and evolution of both our research and the JMC journal community.
Professor Paolo Samorì
Prof. Paolo Samorì is Distinguished Professor at the Université de Strasbourg, Director of the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS) and Director of the Nanochemistry Laboratory and he is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). He has obtained a Laurea (master’s degree) in Industrial Chemistry at University of Bologna in 1995. In 2000, he has received his PhD in Chemistry from the Humboldt University of Berlin (Prof. J. P. Rabe). He has been permanent research scientist at Istituto per la Sintesi Organica e la Fotoreattività of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche of Bologna from 2001 to 2008 and Visiting Professor at ISIS from 2003 to 2008. He has published 440+ papers on nanochemistry, supramolecular sciences, materials chemistry, and scanning probe microscopies with a specific focus on graphene and other 2D materials as well as functional organic/polymeric and hybrid nanomaterials for application in optoelectronics, energy and sensing. |
What do you like most about Journal of Materials Chemistry C as a place to publish your latest materials chemistry research?
It is a perfect outlet where interdisciplinary works are published since it covers the broadest spectra from the making of innovative materials, to their multiscale characterization, to their application via the development of high-performance devices. By covering such a widest field of chemistry it has been instrumental to the interdisciplinary realm of materials science that has witnessed major steps forward during the last three decades.
How has your research evolved from your first Journal of Materials Chemistry C article to your most recent publication in the journal?
Materials chemistry has shaped itself over the years as a technologically relevant discipline by tackling the major challenge of enhancing the chemical and structural complexity of materials to reach more sophisticated and reliable functions. The chemical approach to materials science has indeed been key to trace such a relevant path.
Thank you to our dedicated authors for their support in publishing regularly with the Journal of Materials Chemistry family of journals over the years.
We hope you enjoyed finding out more about just some of our dedicated authors. Keep an eye out for our next ‘Community Spotlight’!
If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.
This year, as you may know, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B, and C are celebrating their 10th anniversary! To join in the celebrations, we’ve asked authors to find creative ways to add a ’10’ to the cover artwork and are excited to show you the results in our monthly cover showcase.
To join in the celebration, you can view the #JMCs10Years hashtag on Twitter and follow the posts for the year so far.
Here are this month’s covers:
This year we are pleased to celebrate 10 years since Journal of Materials Chemistry was split into three respective journals: Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, each focusing on a different aspect of materials chemistry. We are grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.
Next in our ‘Community Spotlight’ series, we feature some of our wonderful Editorial Board members who have supported Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B or C over the years through guiding the growth and development of the journal and/or actively handling papers in their Associate Editor roles. Check out their interview responses below to find out what they like about being on the Editorial Board and how they think the field of materials chemistry will develop in the next 10 years.
Professor Jessica Winter
 Jessica Winter is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry B. She is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Past Chair of the Chemical Engineering Technical Operating Council (CTOC) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). She received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Innovative Visual Rehabilitation at the Boston VA Hospital in 2006. Her research interests include nanoparticles for cancer imaging, diagnostics, and drug delivery; and cell migration in the brain tumor microenvironment. She is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Core Quantum Technologies, a company commercializing nanoparticle reagents for cancer diagnostics. She was named TechColumbus Innovator of the Year, Columbus Business First 40 under 40, and Columbus Business First 20 People to Know in Technology. She has received the American Physical Society (APS) Five Sigma Award, American Chemical Society (ACS) Rising Star Award and the Engineering DesignNews Golden Mouse Trap Rising Star Award; she was named to Top 25 STEM professors in Ohio; and is a fellow of the AIChE, BMES, AAAS, AIMBE, the RSC, and senior member of the IEEE. |
Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?
There has been a dramatic rise in a focus on sustainability in the last few years that will continue to grow. This includes syntheses derived from natural materials, syntheses that reduce energy use, and elimination of toxic solvents and catalysts. There is increasing interest in the materials life cycle. Can we make materials degradable, can we recycle materials, can we make them self-healing to improve their lifetime? I work in the nanotechnology field, and there is substantial interest in ecotoxicology. How do these materials affect plant and animal ecosystems that they might enter through run-off or waste disposal. How do these materials modulate gut and soil microbiomes? It is an exciting time to be working in materials chemistry as we think about how to realize new materials while minimizing their environmental impacts.
As an Associate Editor, do you have any top tips for authors preparing their manuscript?
The most important thing for authors to convey is the novelty of their work. Authors know their research better than anyone. Try to summarize the key findings and the impact of the work and include this in the cover letter, abstract, and conclusions. When possible, try to compare work to the current state of the art to provide context for the innovation.
Professor Achalkumar Ammathnadu Sudhakar
Achalkumar Ammathnadu Sudhakar is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry C. He is working as a full professor at the Department of Chemistry, IIT Guwahati from 2019, where he leads the Soft Matter Research Group. He is also associated with the Centre for Sustainable Polymers at IIT Guwahati. He received his PhD from Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) Bengaluru. He worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Molecular Nano Sciences, University of Leeds, UK (2007 to 2009) and at RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wakoshi, Japan (2009 to 2011), before joining IIT Guwahati. He has been the recipient of Indian Liquid Crystal Society Silver Medal 2019, CRS Silver medal 2023 for his research achievements. He has also been inducted as a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and Indian Chemical Society (FICS) in 2023. His research interests fall in the broad area of liquid crystals, supramolecular chemistry, green chemistry, functional polymers, organogels and self-assembled organic semiconductors. He has published around 90 papers and 3 patents. He has several invited articles and hot articles to his credit. He is also serving as a Dean of Outreach Education Program at IIT Guwahati to popularise science and maths among school children. He is the life member of Indian Liquid Crystal Society, Chemical Research Society and Society for Polymer Science in India. |
What do you think of Journal of Materials Chemistry C as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?
My independent research career was started by publishing my first paper in Journal of Materials Chemistry C, which at that time gave a platform to showcase my research. From last 10 years, I am witnessing the continuous rise of the journal, which has become the best in business for material chemists.
Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?
Sky is the limit ! – Materials Chemistry is such a vibrant and creative field, where you will see the molecule to do function. Utilization of experience, intuition, limitations, usefulness, practicality, creativity, curiosity, serendipity and now artificial intelligence – all these make the journey itself so adventurous and rewarding to the mankind, if the goal is reached, then it will be an icing on cake.
Professor Zhen Zhou
Zhen Zhou is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry A. He earned both his B.S. (in Applied Chemistry in 1994) and Ph.D. (in Inorganic Chemistry in 1999) degrees from Nankai University, China. He joined the faculty at Nankai University as a lecturer in 1999. Two years later, he began to work as a postdoctoral fellow in Nagoya University, Japan. In 2005, he returned to Nankai University as an associate professor and became a full professor in 2011. In 2021, he moved to Zhengzhou University, China as a Distinguished Professor, and he is now Dean of the School of Chemical Engineering. His main research interest lies in the integration of high-throughput computations, experiments and machine learning for energy storage and conversion. |
What do you think of Journal of Materials Chemistry A as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?
Journal of Materials Chemistry A is a prestigious journal that publishes high quality studies across all fields of materials chemistry, with a focus on applications in energy and sustainability. I think that Journal of Materials Chemistry A is a great place to publish your impactful materials chemistry research, as it provides a wide exposure, recognition, and dissemination of your work. Nevertheless, it is also very selective and competitive, so you need to ensure that your research is novel, significant, and well-written to have a chance of acceptance. Despite being a general journal of materials chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry A welcomes submissions on theoretical work, computational simulations, and machine learning, and considers them equally.
Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?
Materials chemistry is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field. In the next 10 years, I think that materials chemistry will continue to grow and evolve, driven by the challenges and opportunities faced by mankind. For example, addressing global issues such as hunger, health, energy, climate change, and pollution by developing new materials for renewable energy, clean water, food security, disease diagnosis and treatment, waste management, and green chemistry.
Materials chemistry will also contribute to the advancement of digital technologies and smart devices by creating new materials for data storage, communication, computation, sensing, and display. And it will embrace new paradigms and methods for materials discovery and design, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), computational simulations, and high-throughput screening. These tools will help accelerate the innovation process and optimize the performance and functionality of materials.
Materials chemistry will also foster more collaboration and integration across disciplines and sectors, such as physics, biology, engineering, medicine, and industry. This will lead to the emergence of new fields and applications of materials chemistry, such as biointerfaces, biomimetics, nanomedicine, smart textiles, and wearable devices.
Materials chemistry is a fascinating and exciting field that has a lot of potential to make a positive difference in the world.
Professor Yana Vaynzof
Prof. Dr. Yana Vaynzof is an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry C. She is the Chair for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the Technical University of Dresden (Germany) and a Director at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden. She received a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Israel) in 2006 and a M. Sc. In Electrical Engineering from Princeton University (USA) in 2008. In 2011, she received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK). Yana was a postdoctoral research associate at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (UK) and an assistant professor at Heidelberg University (Germany) from 2014 to 2019. Yana Vaynzof is the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards, including the ERC Starting Grant, ERC Consolidator Grant, Gordon Wu Fellowship, Henry Kressel Fellowship, Fulbright-Cottrell Award and the Walter Kalkhof-Rose Memorial Prize. Her research interests lie in the field of emerging photovoltaics focusing on the study of material and device physics of organic, quantum dot and perovskite solar cells. |
What do you like most about being on the Editorial Board for Journal of Materials Chemistry C?
One of the things I like most is the opportunity to stay connected to excellent science in topics that do not directly fall into my own research activities. It allows me to see where the field of materials chemistry is evolving and how adjacent fields are developing.
Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?
Progress in materials chemistry is instrumental to tackling global challenges such as climate change. I believe that in the next decade the focus of the materials chemistry field will shift more and more towards the holistic inclusion of sustainability considerations into the design, synthesis, processing and end-of-life of materials. These could range from the development of new concepts in green chemistry to new approaches to materials reuse and recycling and much more.
As an Associate Editor, do you have any top tips for authors preparing their manuscript?
My top recommendation to authors preparing their manuscript for submission to JMC C is to read articles already published in the journal in order to gain better insights into its scope, impact and style. This will also help you realise how to present your findings in a scholarly way, how to make good and informative figures as well as correctly choose the title for your manuscript.
Professor Claus Feldmann
Claus Feldmann is an Editorial Board member of Journal of Materials Chemistry B. He studied chemistry (University of Bonn) and did his doctorate in solid-state chemistry under Martin Jansen. After post-doctoral studies with Hans-Georg von Schnering (Max Planck Institute of Solid-State Research, Stuttgart), he moved to industry (Philips Research Laboratories, Aachen/Eindhoven), where he was engaged in luminescent materials. Simultaneously, he habilitated at the RWTH Aachen on nanomaterials. In 2003, he was appointed at the University of Karlsruhe, the present Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His research interests address solid-state chemistry and functional nanomaterials, ranging from ionic-liquid-based syntheses via base-metal nanoparticles and hollow nanospheres to nanocarriers for multimodal imaging and drug delivery. |
What do you like most about being on the Editorial Board for Journal of Materials Chemistry B?
As a member of the Editorial Board for Journal of Materials Chemistry B, I am fascinated by the variety of publications in the interdisciplinary area between materials and biomedical properties. It is incredible how precisely materials and material properties can be tuned today (compared to 10 years ago) and yet the complexity of human action is still orders of magnitude less than what nature has produced in biology. For me as a scientist, there is still so much to be learned.
Could you provide a brief summary of your most recent Journal of Materials Chemistry B publication?
In oncology, nanocarriers can be expected to make significant progress in achieving high efficacy at the tumour site with low side effects, avoiding drug resistance, and targeting metastases early in addition to the primary tumour. Suitable nanocarriers should contain a drug load as high as possible. They should be biodegradable and – similar to current therapy schemes with dissolved drugs – a cocktail of chemotherapeutics should be applied also with nanocarriers. To this concern, we have developed the concept of inorganic-organic hybrid nanoparticles (IOH-NPs) together with partners in biology and medicine. IOH-NPs are predominately characterized by a synthesis in water, an uncomplex composition and an unprecedented drug load. In this regard, we recently presented theranostic IOH-NPs with a cocktail of chemotherapeutic and cytostatic drugs and a drug load of 71-82 % of the total nanocarrier mass. Cell tests with different tumour cell lines, spheroids and 3D cell cultures prove efficient drug release, high efficacy and a strong synergistic effect of the drug cocktail.
Thank you to all of our dedicated Editorial Board members for their support of the Journal of Materials Chemistry family of journals over the years.
We hope you enjoyed finding out more about some of our Editorial Board members. Keep an eye out for our next ‘Community Spotlight’!
If you missed any of our previous ‘Community Spotlight’ blog posts, check them all out here.
