Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Do you know someone who deserves recognition for their contribution to the materials chemistry field?

Now is your chance to propose they receive the recognition they deserve.

We are pleased to announce that the 2012 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship is now open for nominations. This annual lectureship honours a younger scientist who has made a significant contribution to the field of materials chemistry.

Liberato Manna, the winner of the 2011 lectureship, was chosen for his outstanding contribution to the field of inorganic nanotechnology.

Qualification
To be eligible for the Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship, the candidate should be in the earlier stages of their scientific career, typically within 10 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree, and will have made a significant contribution to the field.

Description
The recipient of the award will be asked to present one Journal of Materials Chemistry lecture, at a conference decided upon by the recipient and the Editorial Office. The Journal of Materials Chemistry Editorial Office will provide the sum of £1000 to the recipient for travel and accommodation costs. The award recipient will be presented with the award at this lecture. They will also be asked to contribute a lead article to the journal and will have their work showcased on the back cover of the issue in which their article is published.

Selection
The recipient of the lectureshipwill be selected and endorsed by the Journal of Materials Chemistry Editorial Board.

Nominations
Those wishing to make a nomination should send details of the nominee including a brief C.V. (no longer than 2 pages) together with a letter supporting the nomination (no longer than 2 pages), to the Journal of Materials Chemistry Editorial Office by 11 May 2012. Please note that self-nomination is permitted.

Send a nomination here today: materials-rsc@rsc.org

A paper by Kenneth Sandhage and colleagues has been highlighted in the Editors’ Choice section of Science (A Layer-by-Layer Amplifier; subscription required). The paper describes a combined layer-by-layer surface amine amplification and electroless deposition process to convert 3-D nanostructured micro-assemblies into freestanding Cu-bearing or Ni-bearing structures.

… And here’s the full research paper:

Syntheses of nanostructured Cu- and Ni-based micro-assemblies with selectable 3-D hierarchical biogenic morphologies
Yunnan Fang, John D. Berrigan, Ye Cai, Seth R. Marder and Kenneth H. Sandhage, J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 1305-1312

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The communication by Guo-Ping Yong and colleagues described how purely organic radical materials can be used to generate stacking-induced white-light or blue-light phosphorescence. This article was selected as a hot article back in December. You can read the write up in ACS Noteworthy Chemistry here: Organic radicals efficiently emit phosphorescence

… And here is the original research article:

Communication: Stacking-induced white-light and blue-light phosphorescence from purely organic radical materials: Guo-Ping Yong, Yi-Man Zhang, Wen-Long She and Ying-Zhou Li, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 18520-18522

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The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here.

 
 
 
The outside front cover features an article on Dielectric behavior of self-assembled monolayers by Oktay Yildirim, Peter J. de Veen, Michiel G. Maas, Minh D. Nguyen, David N. Reinhoudt, Dave H. A. Blank, Guus Rijnders and Jurriaan Huskens.

 

Three-dimensional tubular arrays of MnO₂–NiO nanoflakes with high areal pseudocapacitance is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Jinping Liu, Jian Jiang, Michel Bosman and Hong Jin Fan.
 
 

Issue 6 contains the following Feature articles:

• Recent progress on growth and device development of ZnO and CuO nanostructures and graphene nanosheets  
• Hybrid solar cells: basic principles and the role of ligands 
• Materials nanoarchitectonics for environmental remediation and sensing

Why not take a look at the articles today and blog your thoughts and comments below.

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The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here.

 
 
 
The outside front cover features an article on Peptide-based solids: porosity and zeolitic behavior by Rui Afonso, Adélio Mendes and Luís Gales.

The effect of protein shells on the antioxidant activity of protein-encapsulated platinum nanoparticles is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Boi Hoa San, Sang Hyun Moh and Kyeong Kyu Kim.



Issue 5 contains the following Application and Feature articles:

• Peptide-based solids: porosity and zeolitic behavior
• Role of theory in the design of semiconducting nanostructures
• Advanced functional materials based on polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign up for the journal’s e-alerts or RSS feeds or follow Journal of Materials Chemistry on Twitter

The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here.

The outside front cover features an article on Solution phase synthesis of carbon quantum dots as sensitizers for nanocrystalline TiO₂ solar cells by Peter Mirtchev, Eric J. Henderson, Navid Soheilnia, Christopher M. Yip and Geoffrey A. Ozin.

Issue 4 contains the following Highlight and Feature articles:

• Low-temperature, solution-processed metal oxide thin film transistors
• Controlling physical features of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) for emerging applications
• Polymer encapsulated conjugated polymer nanoparticles for fluorescence bioimaging

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US scientists have developed a separator gel that can form a permanent barrier between blood components when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, to keep cells and plasma apart for medical analysis.

(a) The gel is placed at the bottom of a tube. (b) A blood sample is added. The tube is then placed in a centrifuge, where the gel is liquefied. Owing to its density, the liquefied gel flows to a position between the blood cells and plasma. (c) When centrifugation is stopped, the network is re-established and the gel recovers its solid character, forming a weak barrier between the blood layers. (d) The gel layer is irradiated with a UV lamp, converting the material into a hard, chemically crosslinked network, resulting in a rigid and permanent barrier

Blood tests typically only use the cell-free fraction of whole blood (serum or plasma), and it is common practice within blood sample tubes for these liquids to be separated from the blood cells by a separator gel. Separator gels are designed to reversibly liquefy during centrifugation. They have a density between that of the cells and solution components, so that they separate the components by flowing to a position between the layers during centrifugation. Following centrifugation, the gels stop flowing and remain as a soft barrier between the layers. However, the soft barrier can cause contamination, and leaks between the components and the gel can occur during sample transportation and storage. Interested to know more? Read the full article in Chemistry World here…

A new method for centrifugal separation of blood components: Creating a rigid barrier between density-stratified layers using a UV-curable thixotropic gel
Kunshan Sun, Hyuntaek Oh, Jane F. Emerson and Srinivasa R. Raghavan
J. Mater. Chem., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2JM14818H

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Congratulations to Tom White for winning a Journal of Materials Chemistry presentation prize at Nanostructured Surfaces.

His winning talk was titled “Development of Organic Spacer Layers for the Electronic Decoupling of Molecules from Metallic Substrates”.

Left to right: Philip Moriarty, Tom White, Christopher Baddeley

Tom White is a PhD student at the Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, UK, working in Giovanni Costantini’s research group. Nanostructured Surfaces was organised by the RSC Solid Surfaces Group and held in Burlington House, London, UK, on 9th December 2011.

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign up for the journal’s e-alerts or RSS feeds or follow Journal of Materials Chemistry on Twitter.

The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here.

The outside front cover features a Feature article on Recent progress of double-structural and functional materials with special wettability by Yabin Zhang, Yu Chen, Lei Shi, Jing Li and Zhiguang Guo.

Issue 3 contains the following Feature articles:

• Carbon-based nanostructured materials and their composites as supercapacitor electrodes
• Solution-processed organic nano- and micro-materials: design strategy, growth mechanism and applications 

Fancy submitting an article to Journal of Materials Chemistry? Then why not submit to us today!

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign up for the journal’s e-alerts or RSS feeds or follow Journal of Materials Chemistry on Twitter.

The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here:

The outside front cover features an article on Synergism of interparticle electrostatic repulsion modulation and heat-induced fusion: a generalized one-step approach to porous network-like noble metals and their alloy nanostructures by Jianhua Cui, Hua Zhang, Yifu Yu, Yang Liu, Yiling Tian and Bin Zhang.





Size-controlled preparation of magnetic iron oxide nanocrystals within hyperbranched polymers and their magnetofection in vitro is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Yunfeng Shi, Jimin Du, Linzhu Zhou, Xintao Li, Yahui Zhou, Lingling Li, Xiuxiu Zang, Xiaoyin Zhang, Fuchao Pan, Huanhuan Zhang, Zongyao Wang and Xinyuan Zhu.



Issue 2 contains the following Application and Feature articles:

• Co-based anode materials for alkaline rechargeable Ni/Co batteries: a review  
• Photoalignment of liquid crystals: basics and current trends
• Photoactivated nanomaterials for biomedical release applications

Fancy submitting an article to Journal of Materials Chemistry? Then why not submit to us today!

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign up for the journal’s e-alerts or RSS feeds or follow Journal of Materials Chemistry on Twitter.