Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Issue 6 of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. This issue features Platinum catalyzed growth of NiPt hollow spheres with an ultrathin shell by Qian Sun, Zheng Ren, Rongming Wang, Ning Wang and Xia Cao on the front cover. This paper explains how NiPt hollow spheres with an ultrathin shell were synthesized at room temperature and reports their catalytic properties. (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 1925-1930)

The back cover advertises the work of Davide Barreca, Alberto Gasparotto and Eugenio Tondello and their Highlight Metal/oxide interfaces in inorganic nanosystems: what’s going on and what’s next? (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 1648-1654).

The Feature Article on the outside front cover was Graphene: learning from carbon nanotubes.  Liping Huang, Bin Wu, Gui Yu and Yunqi Liu, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 919-929.

The outside back cover highlighted the Feature Article Physical gels based on supramolecular gelators, including host–guest complexes and pseudorotaxanes by Yuji Suzaki, Toshiaki Taira and Kohtaro Osakada (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 930-938).

 You can read the whole of issue 4 here.  Issue 4, 2011 also feature 3 Hot Articles and a Hot Highlight:

Highlight: Gold–iron oxide nanoparticle chains scaffolded on DNA as potential magnetic resonance imaging agents

Hot Articles

• Fluorination deposition on carbon nanofibers by PTFE decomposition as a facile method to enhance dispersion and interaction in PVDF composites
• Effect of the alkyl chain length of C70-PCBX acceptors on the device performance of P3HT : C70-PCBX polymer solar cells
• Silica-supported aminoxyls as reactive materials for NOx removal

Do you know someone who has made an exceptional contribution in the field of materials chemistry, helped to develop new materials with industry or pioneered new techniques for the benefit of materials research? The RSC Prizes and Awards recognise achievements by individuals, teams and organisations. There are over 60 Prizes and Awards available, covering all areas of the chemical sciences.  Nomination is quick and easy using our online system and you can nominate yourself or a colleague. The closing date for nominations is 31 January 2011 so please don’t wait click on the link and find out more.

I would like to introduce myself as the new Editor of Journal of Materials Chemistry. In my previous role as Deputy Editor of this journal, I have had the opportunity to meet many researchers in the field and I look forward to meeting more of the community at various conferences this year. I am also the Editor of Soft Matter and Managing Editor of Polymer Chemistry.

Dr Liz Davies

Professor Seth Marder

Seth and I are both anticipating an exciting time ahead for Journal of Materials Chemistry. Seth says “I am delighted to be working more closely with the editorial team of Journal of Materials Chemistry in my capacity as Chairman of the Editorial Board. As Chairman of the Editorial Board, my goals are to continue to improve an already excellent journal by a variety of approaches including defining some very clear standards to streamline and standardize the review process and attempting to increase the number of Communications of particularly new and exciting work.” 
 
I would like to say thank you to both of our predecessors, Dr Jamie Humphrey and Professor George Malliaras. Let me know if you have any queries or comments about Journal of Materials Chemistry – it would be great to hear from you!

Finally, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

Journal of Materials Chemistry Volume 21 is now with us and issue 1 is online now.  The editorial ‘Journal of Materials Chemistry: Developing to serve the materials chemistry community’ looks back at 2010, highlighting the phenomenal growth that Journal of Materials Chemistry has seen in this past year in both size and impact factor; it also looks forward to 2011 as we welcome our new Editorial Board Chair, Professor Seth Marder.

The cover of this first issue for 2011 features an applications review from Sam N. Rothstein and Steven R. Little, ‘A “tool box” for rational design of degradable controlled release formulations’.  The image demonstrates that heterogeneous erosion in degradable polyester particles can be correlated with the buildup of acidic species (seen by colour shift) using fluorescence confocal microscopy.

The inside cover features work from Orlin D. Velev describing a leaf-like solar cell ‘Aqueous soft matter based photovoltaic devices’.  This work received widespread media attention, including coverage on this blog.

Why not browse the articles in issue 1 and post any comments you have below.

Journal of Materials Chemistry issue 48 is now online.  The paper featured on the front cover is ‘Synthesis and electrical conductivity of perchlorate-doped TTF–diamide nanofibers with double and triple helix structures’ by Sejung Ahn, Yukyung Kim, Seungjae Beak, Shohei Ishimoto, Hideo Enozawa, Eigo Isomura, Masashi Hasegawa, Masahiko Iyoda and Yungwoo Park from South Korea and Japan.

In this paper the double- and triple-helix nanofibers having tunnelling conduction behaviour are synthesized by splitting the spiral ribbons arising from lamellarly arranged TTF–diamide and intercalated perchlorate ion in the 3:1 ratio.

Interested in knowing more?  Read the full article here; free to access until January 10th.