Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Congratulations to the poster prize winners at ECME 2023

23 Oct 2023

By Natalie Cotterell, Development Editor.

Materials Horizons, Journal of Materials Chemistry C and the Nanoscale journal family were pleased to sponsor poster prizes at the recent ECME 2023 conference held in Bari, Italy. Congratulations to the winners!

Find out more about our winners below:

Siyang Feng

For the poster entitled, ‘Donor–Acceptor–Donor Triads with Flexible Spacers: Deciphering Complex Photophysics for Targeted Materials Design’.

Since January 2021, Siyang Feng is a PhD student (funded by China Scholarship Council) in Prof. Johannes Gierschner’s group and is supervised by Prof. Johannes Gierschner at IMDEA Nanoscience Institute, Madrid, Spain. His research focuses on Photophysics of Innovative Organic Charge-Transfer Systems by Combining Optical Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemistry.

Tran Van Chinh

For the poster entitled, ‘Wood Electrochemical Transistor’

I am Van Chinh Tran, a last-year PhD student at the Lab of Organic Electronics at Linköping University, Sweden.

My PhD studies revolve around the development of organic electronics, including transistors, supercapacitors, and batteries, using forest-based materials.

Sasha Simotko

For the poster entitled, ‘Understanding the Effects of Processing Conditions on Non-Fullerene-Based Organic Photodiode Performances’

My name is Sasha( Alexandra) Simotko, and I am a 26-year-old Ph.D. candidate at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. I was born in Minsk, Belarus, and moved to Israel when I was three. I studied in Rishon Le Zion and served two years as a dentist assistant during my military service. After serving, I did my Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, followed by a Master’s degree in the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) under the supervision of prof. Gitti Frey, studying the effect of processing conditions on the evolution of the morphology of organic photodiodes. After one year of Master’s studies, I joined the direct track to Ph.D. studies in the Materials Science and Engineering department. My research these days focuses on investigating light and energy-efficient organic systems for light-sensing applications.

Congratulations to all these fantastic winners!

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Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C 10th Anniversary Community Spotlight: Editorial Board

18 Oct 2023

By Natalie Cotterell, Development Editor.

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:

Identify early the points that you want to discuss in the paper (i.e., make a strong and compelling story)
Prepare a strong abstract by highlighting how your work is novel compared to other studies published in the literature and by pointing out the main findings of the work.
Read your papers multiple times to avoid careless typos and spelling.
Have all the co-authors read and comment on your draft.
Ensure that all your figures are readable and attractive to the readers.
Ensure that you are not simply describing your results but also explain the reasons behind your observations
Ensure that all figures (including Supporting Information figures) are cited and discussed in the text.
Summarize only the most important findings in the Conclusions

Professor Oana Jurchescu

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

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.

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.

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Journal of Materials Chemistry 10th Anniversary Cover Showcase – October

18 Oct 2023

By Daniel Smith.

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:

Enhancing thermoelectric performance via relaxed spin polarization upon magnetic impurity doping

Urethane functions can reduce metal salts under hydrothermal conditions: synthesis of noble metal nanoparticles on flexible sponges applied in semi-automated organic reduction

Controlled synthesis of highly active bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting using coal-based activated carbons

Next-generation materials for RNA–lipid nanoparticles: lyophilization and targeted transfection

One-step antibacterial modification of polypropylene non-woven fabrics via oxidation using photo-activated chlorine dioxide radicals

Influence of Cu insertion on the thermoelectric properties of the quaternary cluster compounds Cu3M2Mo15Se19 (M = In, K) and Cu4In2Mo15Se19

Remarkable performance recovery in highly defective perovskite solar cells by photo-oxidation

The fluorination effect: the importance of backbone planarity in achieving high performance ambipolar field effect transistors

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Collection Celebrating the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: mRNA vaccines against COVID-19

17 Oct 2023

By Serra Arslancan Sengelen, Assistant Editor.

We are delighted to share a cross-journal themed collection on mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, celebrating the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman were jointly awarded a Nobel Prize “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.” Royal Society of Chemistry journals congratulate both Nobel Laureates.

Understanding mRNA’s interaction with the immune system had a crucial role in accelerating vaccine development during one of the most significant health crises in contemporary history. This collection highlights recent advancements in mRNA technologies for vaccine development, covering mRNA delivery strategies, biomaterials, nanoparticles, and click chemistry.

Read the collection here.

A selection of articles from the collection is included below. All articles are free to access until 17^th November. All Open Access journal articles are always free to access. We hope you will enjoy reading the articles in this themed collection. Please do share this collection with your colleagues and networks.

Reviews

A comprehensive overview of vaccines developed for pandemic viral pathogens over the past two decades including those in clinical trials for the current novel SARS-CoV-2

Kannan Damodharan, Gandarvakottai Senthilkumar Arumugam, Suresh Ganesan, Mukesh Doble and Sathiah Thennarasu

RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 20006-20035 DOI: 10.1039/D0RA09668G

Emerging mRNA technologies: delivery strategies and biomedical applications

Yufen Xiao, Zhongmin Tang, Xiangang Huang, Wei Chen, Jun Zhou, Haijun Liu, Chuang Liu, Na Kong and Wei Tao

Chem. Soc. Rev., 2022, 51, 3828-3845 DOI: 10.1039/D1CS00617G

Lipid-based colloidal nanoparticles for applications in targeted vaccine delivery

Muhammad Saad Khan, Sila Appak Baskoy, Celina Yang, Joohye Hong, Jayoung Chae, Heejin Ha, Sungjun Lee, Masayoshi Tanaka, Yonghyun Choi and Jonghoon Choi

Nanoscale Adv., 2023, 5, 1853-1869 DOI: 10.1039/D2NA00795A

Articles

A PEG-lipid-free COVID-19 mRNA vaccine triggers robust immune responses in mice

Min Li, Yixuan Huang, Jiacai Wu, Sanpeng Li, Miao Mei, Haixia Chen, Ning Wang, Weigang Wu, Boping Zhou, Xu Tan and Bin Li

Mater. Horiz., 2023, 10, 466-472 DOI: 10.1039/D2MH01260J

Towards mRNA with superior translational activity: synthesis and properties of ARCA tetraphosphates with single phosphorothioate modifications

Malwina Strenkowska, Joanna Kowalska, Maciej Lukaszewicz, Joanna Zuberek, Wei Su, Robert E. Rhoads, Edward Darzynkiewicz and Jacek Jemielity

New J. Chem., 2010, 34, 993-1007 DOI: 10.1039/B9NJ00644C

Development of a high-throughput platform for screening lipid nanoparticles for mRNA delivery

Lili Cui, Sara Pereira, Silvia Sonzini, Sally van Pelt, Steven M. Romanelli, Lihuan Liang, David Ulkoski, Venkata R. Krishnamurthy, Emily Brannigan, Christopher Brankin and Arpan S. Desai

Nanoscale, 2022, 14, 1480-1491 DOI: 10.1039/D1NR06858J

Enhanced immunogenicity induced by mRNA vaccines with various lipid nanoparticles as carriers for SARS-CoV-2 infection

Yanhao Zhang, Ji Wang, Hanlei Xing, Chao Liu, Wenhui Zha, Shuo Dong, Yuhao Jiang and Xinsong Li

J. Mater. Chem. B, 2023,11, 7454-7465 DOI: 10.1039/D3TB00303E

mRNA-carrying lipid nanoparticles that induce lysosomal rupture activate NLRP3 inflammasome and reduce mRNA transfection efficiency

James Forster III, Dipika Nandi and Ashish Kulkarni

Biomater. Sci., 2022, 10, 5566-5582 DOI: 10.1039/D2BM00883A

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Congratulations to our Poster Prize winner at Fall E-MRS 2023: Symposium C

13 Oct 2023

By Rose Wedgbury Ph.D., Development Editor.

Journal of Materials Chemistry C, was pleased to sponsor a poster prize at the ‘Perovskites: from materials science to devices’ Symposium at Fall E-MRS 2023.

Congratulations to Sandeep Kumar Gundam!

For the poster titled: Spectrally stable pure blue-emitting perovskite nanocrystal thin films for light-emitting diodes

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Congratulations to our Poster Prize winners at Fall E-MRS 2023

12 Oct 2023

By Natalie Cotterell, Development Editor.

Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Materials Advances and Biomaterials Science were pleased to sponsor poster prizes at the ‘ New directions in 2D and 3D Bionanomaterials’ symposium at Fall E-MRS 2023- congratulations to the winners!

Check out our spotlight of one of the winners, Miquel Castellote-Borrell (ICMAB-CSIC, Spain) below.

Miquel received an award for his poster entitled, ‘PEG-heparin biohybrid hydrogels for hematological tumoroid culture’ which was chosen by the symposium committee.

Miquel Castellote-Borrell obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB, Spain). He conducted his bachelor thesis in the Cell Mimicry Laboratory led by Prof. Städler in the Aarhus University (Denmark). He obtained his Master’s degree in Bionanotechnology in UAB in 2018. Since 2020, he is pursuing his PhD thesis at the Max Planck Partner Group “Dynamic Biomimetics for Cancer Immunotherapy” led by Dr. Guasch at ICMAB-CSIC (Spain), where he is currently working on the development of biohybrid hydrogels for adoptive cell therapy and organoid culture.

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Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances welcome Professor Maia G. Vergniory to our Editorial Boards

04 Oct 2023

By Rosie Hague, Editorial Assistant.

Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances are delighted to welcome Professor Maia G. Vergniory from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Germany, to our Editorial Boards as a new Associate Editor.

“I look forward to working with the members of the Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances team to advance the field of topological and inorganic chemistry through these journals.”

Maia G. Vergniory is a research professor at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany. Her prior positions include the Donostia International Physics Center in Spain, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California, and the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany. She has been awarded the “Most outstanding physicist of Spain” in 2018 by the Spanish Superior Research Council, a L’Oréal-UNESCO award for Women in Science in 2017, the Ikerbasque (Basque research) award for the best scientific contribution of 2019, and in 2022 was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Her group is interested in a variety of problems in condensed matter theory oriented to material realization. The main focus lies on the study of topological phenomena in bosonic and fermionic lattices with and without interactions. Areas of research include the study of topological phases of matter, design of new materials, photonic crystals and search of experimental signatures of topological phases.

Join us in welcoming Professor Maia G. Vergniory to our Editorial Boards!

Submit your best work to Professor Vergniory and our team of Associate Editors on Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances now! Check out our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.

Keep up to date with our latest articles, reviews, collections & more by following us on Twitter, Facebook or by signing up to our E-Alerts.

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Open Call for Papers: Stimuli-responsive materials for biomedical applications

29 Sep 2023

By Ashley McGovern.

Journal of Materials Chemistry B is pleased to announce an open call for papers for the upcoming themed collection on stimuli-responsive materials for biomedical applications.

This collection will be Guest edited by:

Prof. Yanli Zhao, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Dr. Mary Beth Browning Monroe, Syracuse University, United States.

Prof. N. D. Pradeep Singh, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India.

This themed collection from the Journal of Materials Chemistry B is focused on recent developments in stimuli-responsive biomaterials.

A large number of stimulus methods have been deployed in functional materials for various biological and biomedical applications, such as (i) photo-responsive materials, (ii) pH-responsive materials, (iii) temperature-responsive materials, and (iv) biologically responsive materials.

This issue aims to cover recent progress on stimuli-responsive materials for biomedical applications, including their design, synthesis, characterization, and applications related to biology and medicine.

If you would like to contribute to this themed collection, you can submit your article directly to the online submission service for the Journal of Materials Chemistry B. Please mention that this submission is a contribution to the Stimuli-responsive biomaterials collection in the “Themed issues” section of the submission form and add a “Note to the Editor” that this is from the Open Call. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check the suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of both the journal and the collection, and inclusion of accepted articles in the final themed issue is not guaranteed.

Journal of Materials Chemistry B publishes high impact work related to materials for biology and medical applications. By publishing this themed collection on ‘Stimuli-responsive materials’, we hope to feature complementary research within the topic field and to collect the most relevant and most recent work on the progress of stimuli-responsive biomaterials research.

We look forward to receiving your submissions and featuring your latest work in this exciting collection!

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Insights from the authors of a highly cited Materials Advances article

26 Sep 2023

By Serra Arslancan Sengelen, Assistant Editor.

Nanomaterials: a review of synthesis methods, properties, recent progress, and challenges has been one of the most highly cited articles published in Materials Advances so far. The authors have recently answered our questions, and in this blog, we are sharing the insights from our interview with them. We congratulate the authors on their impactful work and wish them success in their future academic research.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

Access to clean water is a growing global issue. A recent report by UNESCO reveals that 2 billion individuals do not have access to safe drinking water. Furthermore, the region where we reside (Saudi Arabia) has already declared a water-stress region. We are designing advanced membranes for desalination and water reuse, which may contribute to meeting global and regional demand in the future. Our research group is developing next-generation membranes using 2D materials. The 2D materials we use can be divided into two classes specifically for membrane applications. The first class has ordered pores, such as COFs and 2D MOFs, whereas the other type is intrinsically non-porous, such as graphene, MXenes, and TMDs. Our research group is working on tuning the interlayer distance of the non-porous 2D sheets to control the permeability and selectivity of these membranes according to the desired applications. We believe that the tunability of the 2D membranes makes them unique compared to the state-of-the-art commercialized polymeric membranes.

What do you find most challenging about your research?

Fouling remains a significant challenge in the implementation of membrane-based technology. Therefore, most of the industries still have not adopted membrane-based technology. 2D materials-based membranes look promising at the lab scale to develop antifouling membranes, but their processability and scalability would be challenging. Our research group is currently working on a lab scale at IRC-Membranes Water Security, KFUPM, but we are planning and working to bring them from the lab scale to the market.

What does it mean to you to have a highly cited article?

It is a gratifying experience for a researcher to receive recognition for his work from their peers in the same field.

How do you feel about Materials Advances as a place to publish research on this topic?

Materials Advances has emerged as a prestigious journal of the Materials family. Material Advances platform provides a distinctive opportunity for researchers to publish their latest findings in materials science. Due to its high-quality publications, this journal has become a hub of material science progress and knowledge.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I advise early career researchers to identify global problems and research gaps and put their best efforts into solving them to become impactful. Do the brainstorming by What, why, and how. What is the problem, why is it, and how can it be solved? Keep pushing towards your goals and dreams, overcoming obstacles and challenges, until you can look back proudly on your journey.

Meet the authors

Dr Nadeem Baig is a Research Scientist III (Assistant Professor) at IRC-Membrane and Water Security, KFUPM. He obtained his BS (Hons.) from the University of the Punjab in 2008 and his MPhil from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore in 2012. He obtained his Ph.D. from KFUPM, Saudi Arabia, in 2017. Dr Baig joined the Center of Research Excellence in Desalination & Water Treatment at KFUPM in 2020 after working as a two-year postdoctoral researcher. His research is focused on developing next-generation membranes utilizing 2D materials, including graphene, MXene, TMDs, 2D MOFs, and COFs for oil/water separation, desalination, water reuse, and recovering precious metals. His interests also include developing nanostructured materials and super-selective surfaces for energy and environmental applications. He has received several distinguished awards. So far, Dr Baig has obtained 10 US patents. Dr Baig received the prestigious Early Career Research Award at KFUPM in 2022. His name was also included among the top 2% of scientists worldwide in the discipline of Chemistry.

Dr Irshad Kammakakam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. Dr Kammakakam received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Incheon National University, South Korea. His research focused on developing advanced organic porous materials and functional polymeric membranes for energy-saving separation technology and environmental green energy applications. Before joining Nazarbayev University, Dr Kammakakam was a Research Scientist at the Advanced Materials Chemistry Center, Khalifa University, UAE. He also worked as a Visiting Scientist at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (South Korea). He completed multiple Postdocs at the European Institute of Membranes (France), the University of Alabama (USA), and the KAUST (Saudi Arabia). Dr Kammakakam broadly works to design and synthesize ionic polymers for molecular separation membranes and energy storage applications. Dr Kammakakam has bagged many awards and achievements, including the recipient of the 2020 Future Faculty Mentoring Program sponsored by the EdDiv of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Dr Wail Sulaiman Falath is the Dean of the College of General Studies and an Assistant Professor at the Materials Science and Engineering Department of King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals. Dr Falath has a Ph.D. degree in Polymers, Textiles, and Fibers Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. His Ph.D. was related to fabricating polymeric mixed matrix membranes for Reverse Osmosis water desalination. Dr Falath’s research is focused on the environment, synthesis of membranes for water desalination, and surface modifications and characterization of several materials.

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Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C 10th Anniversary Community Spotlight: Dedicated Authors

25 Sep 2023

By Natalie Cotterell, Development Editor.

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.

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