Meet some of the authors of the winning paper
Lucas Ueberricke, Felix Mildner, Yuquan Wu, Elisa Thauer, Tom Wickenhäuser, Wen-Shan Zhang, Yana Vaynzof, Sven M. Elbert, Rasmus R. Schröder, Rüdiger Klingeler and Michael Mastalerz
New Journal of Materials Chemistry A Scientific Editor
Welcome to Sofía Calero
Journal of Materials Chemistry A is delighted to welcome Prof. Sofía Calero to the Editorial Board as a Scientific Editor. Please join us in congratulating Sofía on her new role and find out more about her in the interview below:
Sofía Calero is a professor of Applied Physics and chairs the Materials Simulation and Modelling group at the department of Applied Physics and Science Education, at Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. Dr. Calero is part of the Board of Directors of the International Adsorption Society and the Spanish Adsorption Group, which she currently chairs. She is the author of over 300 refereed scientific publications and has been the recipient of numerous prestigious scientific prizes and Awards, including the Marie Curie Excellence Award, ERC Consolidator Grant, Salvador de Madariaga Grant, Dutch VPP-KNAW grant, Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry awards for Young Researchers and later on for Scientific Excellence and the Irene Curie Grant. Her research involves the application of molecular simulation to industrially relevant systems and the development of force fields, algorithms and simulation methods to reverse-engineer properties of porous materials. What does it mean to you to join the Editorial Board, as a Scientific Editor on Journal of Materials Chemistry A? Joining the board as a Scientific Editor gives me the opportunity to be in touch with the most advanced science in the materials field. This is great for me, as I understand it would be for all those scientists who enjoy the work they do. What is the current biggest challenge you face in your field? There are many. In silico work on materials is now in a very good moment. Computers are faster and we are increasingly immersed in the development of efficient methodologies. Accurate and transferable force fields remain a challenge for many systems. Examples are amorphous and defective materials, challenging properties related to energy production and storage or, in the field of adsorption, large complex adsorbates that can lead to adsorbent phase transitions. Why do you feel that researchers should choose to publish their work in Journal of Materials Chemistry A? Because it is a very good journal, addressing some of the most emerging challenges for current materials. Can you tell us about one of your latest Journal of Materials Chemistry A publications? It was related to work to evaluate the performance of adsorption heat pumps and cooling systems (https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2024/ta/d3ta05258c). To do this, we combined adsorption data of alcohols in MOFs with a thermodynamic model, generating a process that allowed us to obtain, among other properties, the coefficient of performance, the working capacity, the specific heat or cooling effect and the heat released in the adsorption and desorption cycles. Furthermore, our process has the advantage of identifying the optimal conditions for each adsorbent-fluid pair.
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New Journal of Materials Chemistry B Advisory Board member
Welcome to Dr João Borges
Journal of Materials Chemistry B is delighted to welcome Dr João Borges (University of Aveiro, Portugal) to the Advisory Board. Please join us in congratulating João on his new position and find out more about him in the interview below:
Dr. João Borges is a Senior Researcher at the Department of Chemistry and CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Porto in 2013. His research focuses on the molecular design, synthesis and development of bioinstructive supramolecular multicomponent biomaterials to interface with living systems. In particular, he has been developing chemically programmable and dynamic supramolecular hydrogels and Layer-by-Layer-driven soft self-assembling biomaterials by combining polysaccharides, self-assembling peptides and nucleic acids, to be used as bioinstructive matrices to control cell functions and as platforms for controlled drug/therapeutics delivery. He has served as a Guest Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry B in 2024. He has been strongly committed to delivering a positive social impact by being invested in science communication, outreach, and policy and he has been connecting, supporting and empowering early-career scientists in advancing their professional development as a member of the Global Young Academy, Young Academy of Portugal of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, International Younger Chemists Network (IYCN), and European Young Chemists’ Network. He is co-chair of the Global Conversation on Sustainability by IUPAC and the IYCN, and a National Representative of the IYCN Standing Committee at IUPAC. What does it mean to you to join the Advisory Board of Journal of Materials Chemistry B? I am truly honored and delighted to join the Advisory Board of the prestigious Journal of Materials Chemistry B, which publishes high quality research at the interface of materials chemistry, biology and medicine. The unique opportunity to join the Advisory Board will enable me to contribute further to the journal and to support the materials chemistry community by several means. Those include contributing with strategic advice, suggestions and recommendations to keep the high standards of quality of the journal, aiding in promoting and publishing impactful materials chemistry research, as well as in proposing themed collections (I am currently co-editing a themed collection) and perspective articles in the field, and helping in shaping the future directions and development of the journal by working closely with peer Editorial Board Members. What is the current biggest challenge you face in your field? One of the biggest challenges for those working at the interface of materials chemistry, biology and medicine is still accelerating translational research by navigating the regulatory issues, i.e. bridging the gap between the lab research and the clinics towards benefiting society. The possibility to enable the translation of pioneering devices, technologies and advanced therapies at a faster pace that could improve the quality and life expectancy of citizens and reduce the healthcare costs is fundamental to address many pressing healthcare challenges that society faces and contribute to sustainable development. In addition, as a young scientist, one of the major challenges we face is funding which is transversal to several fields and areas of research. Why do you feel that researchers should choose to publish their work in Journal of Materials Chemistry B? Journal of Materials Chemistry B is a truly reputable and widely read interdisciplinary forum for publishing cutting-edge research at the interface of chemistry, materials science, biology and medicine, which maximizes the visibility and impact of scientific research. One can publish a wide range of studies at the forefront of materials chemistry research, from a more fundamental science perspective on the design and synthesis of materials to their applications in biology and medicine. In addition, I also very much appreciate the professionalism and commitment of the editorial team, as well as the thoughtful and trustworthy peer-review process which undoubtedly helps to improve the quality of the science communicated by the authors and to increase its impact. Can you tell us about one of your latest Journal of Materials Chemistry B publications? Our most recent publication was an original full paper published in 2023 on the development of marine-origin polysaccharides-based free-standing multilayered membranes as sustainable nanoreservoirs for controlled drug delivery. This manuscript emphasizes the synergistic use of sustainable marine-origin biopolymers, their chemical modification into water-soluble biopolymers at physiological pH, and their processing into robust biocompatible and biodegradable membranes/devices for controlled drug/therapeutics delivery by resorting to the green and cost-effective bottom-up layer-by-layer assembly nanotechnology. The proposed membranes represent promising sustainable nanocarriers for the encapsulation and sustained release of therapeutics in in vitro and in vivo scenarios, holding great promise to be used as implantable biomaterials for modular tissue engineering and regenerative medicine strategies. This manuscript is part of several themed collections, including Journal of Materials Chemistry B Emerging Investigators and 2023 Journal of Materials Chemistry B Most Popular Articles. We are delighted that this manuscript has been well received by the materials chemistry community and has been gathering the attention of the readers of the journal.
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Materials Advances was delighted to sponsor 3 prizes for Poster Presentations at the SNAIA CRISTMAS 2023 event which took place in the Chimie Paris Tech on 13-15 December 2023.
It was difficult for the organisers to pick the prize winners due to the exceptional quality of all the posters presented at the event – the prize winners below were “truly outstanding”!
Congratulations to the winners from the Materials Advances team!
If you would like to attend the next edition of the event then visit the 2024 webpage here: https://cristmas.org/
SNAIA – CRISTMAS – Most Recent Innovations in Materials Science and Advanced Characterisation Methods
The 2024 event will provide a unique platform to meet, share knowledge and establish links between experts from academia and industry covering the most exciting emerging applications within fields of Photonics, (Opto)Electronics, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Engineering, Quantum Computing, and Art.
Congratulations to the poster prize winners at the Cambridge Bioelectronics Symposium held on 1-3 July 2024 in Cambridge, UK. Ahmed Omara won the Journal of Materials Chemistry B award, while Joseph Asfouri won the Journal of Materials Chemistry C award.
Poster title: Hydrogel-Functionalized Microelectrode Arrays (MEAs) for Multimodal Cell Stimulation
Biography: Ahmed Omara, originally from Egypt, holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with a double concentration in material science and mechatronics, and a minor in economics from the American University in Cairo, graduating in 2015. He pursued an Erasmus Mundus master’s program in nanoscience and nanotechnology, spending the first year in Belgium and the second in Barcelona, Spain. Specializing in nanomaterials, he discovered a passion for biomaterials, hydrogels, tissue engineering, and electronics.
After his masters Ahmed returned to Egypt in 2021 where he worked as a lead scientist to create biodegradable plastics from natural sources at Sadko group of companies. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at the Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research in Dresden, Germany, focusing on fabricating bioelectronic devices and functionalizing them with hydrogel for multimodal cell simulation at a single-cell resolution level.
Poster title: Towards a 3D, Flexible, Biohybrid Device for Cell Replacement Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease
Biography: Joseph is a master’s student in George Malliaras’ lab at the University of Cambridge. During his undergraduate years at Rice University, he studied electrical engineering and neuroscience while conducting research on magnetogenetic neural stimulation at Rice, deep brain stimulation for depression at Baylor College of Medicine, and brain-computer interfaces for motor prostheses at the University of Washington. At Cambridge, he designed a novel bioelectronic implant to enhance stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease. Along with his passion for neural engineering, his interests include science policy and commercialization to translate neurotechnology safely and efficiently from the lab to the clinic. This fall, Joseph will return to the US to start his PhD in the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Bioengineering Program.
Materials Advances is pleased to announce an open call for papers, for the upcoming themed collection:
Energy storage and conversion techniques are the cornerstones of a sustainable future, allowing us to capture renewable energy when it’s abundant. 1D fibrous materials having unique properties, such as high surface to volume ratio and conductivity, can revolutionize advanced energy storage and conversion devices. These unique properties make them a key material for next-generation clean energy technologies. This special themed collection will explore the full potential of various 1D fibrous based materials for energy conversion and storage application including, but not limited to;
Submissions should fit within the scope of the collection and Materials Advances. Please click on the journal link for more information on the journal’s scope, standards, article types and author guidelines.
Open for submissions until 11th December 2024
If you are interested in submitting a review-type article, please contact the Editorial Office at materialsadvances-rsc@rsc.org in the first instance with a proposed title and abstract as initial approval is required before submission to limit the number of review-type articles and avoid potential topic overlap.
Please note that article processing charges apply to all articles submitted to Materials Advances if, following peer-review, they are accepted for publication. Details of the APC can be found here. Corresponding authors who are not already members of the Royal Society of Chemistry are entitled to one year’s Affiliate membership as part of their APC. Find out more about our member benefits.
If your institution has a read and publish deal with the RSC you may be entitled to a discount or waiver to publish your manuscript. We encourage you to use our new journal finder tool to see if you are eligible for a discount or waiver through an institutional deal.
Bethan graduated with an MCHEM in chemistry and is currently in the first year of their PhD at the University of Liverpool with Dr Lauren McHugh as a supervisor and Professor Andy Cooper as a co-supervisor.
“The work I do is centred around MOF glasses with the aim of tailoring them for real life application. In my poster I discussed the trialling of a prospective porogen and the outcomes of those experiments. It was ultimately unsuccessful in increasing porosity, however, it was deduced that the incorporation method may be the fault. Subsequently, alternative methods were proposed such as experimenting with altered linkers in the structure and incorporating the porogen through saturating the pores of the crystalline material by soaking in a saturated solution. Long with porous materials, I also have an interest in accessibility in chemistry teaching. And ultimately with my project, I hope to contribute to the efforts in developing materials for water purification.”
Omar Al-Miqdadi’s background is in chemistry where they attended the University of Warwick for their undergraduate studies. During Omar’s master’s year, they worked under the supervision of Professor Richard Walton to discover iron-based metal organic frameworks which could be built from sustainably sourced organic ligands.
In 2022, Omar began their PhD at Imperial College London under the supervision of Dr Becky Greenaway and Professor Camille Petit. Their experience in metal organic frameworks proved to be useful when delving into the world of type III porous liquids; dispersions of metal organic frameworks in pore-excluded liquids. They are using automated high-throughput experimentation to discover effective type III porous liquids for CO2 capture.
“In order to discover the ‘best’ porous liquid systems for carbon capture, we have employed an automated high-throughput workflow as our approach. Using 8 different ionic liquids as our pore-excluded liquids, we vary cation functional group and alkyl chain length using a constant anion and metal organic framework.
We are able to synthesise ZIF-8 on the automated platform and using solid dispensing, combine it with the 8 ionic liquids. Using a different liquid handling platform, we then test the viscosity of these dispersions based on a relationship between flow rate and viscosity. Following this, we use thermogravimetric analysis to measure CO2 uptake of the dispersions and by comparing to the uptake of the neat ionic liquids, we’re able to determine whether they are porous combinations or not. Finally, we look at the stability of these porous liquids by using a camera and custom monitoring rack to analyse how well they remain dispersed and by using dynamic light scattering to analyse the ZIF-8 particle size over time looking for any potential aggregation.
We hope that by using this workflow we are able to elucidate key structure-property relationships and by continuing to study these systems are able to understand what makes a type III porous liquid a good CO2 capture sorbent.”
Evandro Castaldelli received his PhD in Chemistry in 2016 from Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil, working on the synthesis of a new semiconducting metal-organic framework with interesting photoelectronic properties. The electrical characteristics were investigated at University of Surrey, UK, where Evandro spent 12 months working with Prof Ravi Silva CBE. He followed up with his first post-doctoral position, in 2017, also at Universidade de Sao Paulo, working on the synthesis of phthalocyanine-based coordination polymers and derived graphene nanocomposites, for electrochemical applications in water splitting and glucose sensing.
In 2018, alongside Evandro’s post-doc, he was offered a position in industry as main researcher and scientific consultant at Golden Technology LDTA, Brazil, working in fine chemicals for textiles. Projects and interests encompassed all aspects of this industry, from pre-treatments, dyeing, finishing, and water treatment. Evandro was particularly excited to be part of the development of products to obtain functional textiles, including antimicrobial, insect repellent and flame-retardant coatings. During this time, he also had an active role in bridging the gap between academia and industry, when they attracted the interest of local research institutions for innovation partnerships.
In 2021 Evandro decided to return to academia, when he started as a Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil, teaching Thermodynamics, Kinetics, Chemistry of Interfaces and Quantum Mechanics. Then, in 2022, he started my current role as Post-Doctoral Research Associate at University of Nottingham, UK, working with the development of optical fibres coated with metal-organic frameworks for gas sensing in healthcare. Evandro is also a volunteer demonstrator, for laboratory and outreach events, and tutor in Inorganic Chemistry.
“The development of sensors for gases and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is key for a range of applications such indoor air quality control and healthcare. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are promising candidates as they have been demonstrated to have excellent and tuneable selectivity for different gases and VOCs. Despite recent progress, MOF integration into devices is still a major challenge, as synthetic conditions are often harsh and deposition mechanisms are not yet fully understood1. Furthermore, studies are often limited to layer-by-layer deposition of archetypal MOFs. In this work we show: the rapid solvothermal deposition of isostructural MFM-101 and MFM-190(CH3) frameworks onto optical fibres; and the influence of synthetic conditions and role of surface functionalisation on coverage, morphology, and phase purity. Our results will fill a knowledge gap in this field and move towards a general protocol for controlled MOF deposition onto various substrates.
Surface-mounted MOFs are usually obtained via liquid phase epitaxial layer-by-layer growth on substrates featuring some surface functionalisation, which can be achieved via sol-gel, self-assembled monolayers or nanoparticle deposition. While it affords great control over film thickness, morphology, and homogeneity, it is often slow and may not be applicable to all MOFs. On the other hand, simple solvothermal techniques usually yield poor coverage and little control over thickness, crystal phase and orientation2. In our case study, we have used MFM-101 and MFM-190(CH3), two isostructural copper-based MOFs which are typically synthesized solvothermally at 80 °C, using HCl as modulator, with reaction times varying from 2 to 4 days3. These conditions are usually optimized to yield high quality, large crystals, which are often contradictory with effective surface coverage and fibre optic sensors. For the latter, crystals larger than 5 μm fall outside the effective sensing area. We were able to achieve phase purity and reduce crystal sizes to the 1-5 μm range by removing the modulator, while optimizing deposition temperatures and significantly reducing reaction times to 15 min.
U-shaped optical fibres were functionalised with hydroxyl (-OH) groups to provide initial anchoring for MOF deposition, while a non-functionalised (bare) fibre was included as reference. SEM/EDX and Raman analyses of the coatings revealed that morphology and phase purity can be controlled via surface functionalisation alone. Real-time spectroscopical investigation of MFM-101 and MFM-190(CH3) depositions provided information about growth kinetics and surface coverage, revealing the unexpected influence of interfacial chemistry not only on surface coverage, as well as in crystal density and size. On average, non-functionalised fibres had crystals in the 5-20 μm range while hydroxylated fibres showed crystals in the 1-5 μm range. The resulting sensors can be used with a range of VOCs, and, surprisingly, their performance is also affected by the initial anchoring group. Preliminary results in VOC sensing indicate that hydroxylated fibres perform significantly better than their non-functionalised counterparts.”
References
[1] A. Kirchon, L. Feng, H. F. Drake, E. A. Joseph and H.-C. Zhou, Chem. Soc. Rev. 2018, 47, 8611
[2] A. L. Semrau, Z. Zhou, S. Mukherjee, M. Tu, W. Li and R. Fischer, Langmuir 2021, 37, 6847-6863
[3] W. Li et al, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 13196-13204
Materials Advances is celebrating its fourth birthday this year! As the journal continues to grow and establish its place within the materials research community, we would like to thank all our authors, reviewers, editors, and readers for their continued support. |
Take a look at some of our recent metrics to see how the journal is performing. |
There are many exciting journal initiatives that you can get involved with, including: |
Topical themed collections: Find out about our current open calls for paper here or read some of our recently closed collections
Discover our new regional collection:
Spotlights on well-received review articles in Materials Advances
Check out our Popular Advances collection, which is updated regularly
Materials Advances Paper Prize
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Meet the Materials Advances team at upcoming conferences!
Our Editorial Office team will be attending conferences and events over the second half of 2024, including:
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Thank you again for your support of Materials Advances! |
Materials Advances is delighted to introduce our latest themed collection focused on inorganic-organic porous materials that enable the capture, storage, sensing, and conversion of CO2.
You can explore the collection and read the introductory editorial from our guest editors below. Articles in the collection are published in Materials Advances so they are all open access and freely available.
Read some of the featured articles below.
Simulating excited states in metal organic frameworks: from light-absorption to photochemical CO2 reduction
Michael Ingham, Alex Aziz, Devis Di Tommaso and Rachel Crespo-Otero
Mater. Adv., 2023, 4, 5388-5419 DOI: 10.1039/D3MA00518F
Pore volume regulated CO2 adsorption in C–C bonded porous organic frameworks
Himan Dev Singh, Piyush Singh, Deepak Rase and Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan
Mater. Adv., 2023, 4, 3055-3060 DOI: 10.1039/D3MA00218G
Rapid microwave synthesis of sustainable magnetic framework composites of UTSA-16(Zn) with Fe3O4 nanoparticles for efficient CO2 capture
John Luke Woodliffe, Amy-Louise Johnston, Michael Fay, Rebecca Ferrari, Rachel L. Gomes, Ed Lester, Ifty Ahmeda and Andrea Laybourn
Mater. Adv., 2023, 4, 5838-5849 DOI: 10.1039/D3MA00351E
Unusual adsorption-induced phase transitions in a pillared-layered copper ethylenediphosphonate with ultrasmall channels
Margherita Cavallo, Matteo Signorile, Roberto Köferstein, Valentina Crocellà and Marco Taddei
Mater. Adv., 2023, 5, 183-198 DOI: 10.1039/D3MA00356F
Direct CO2 to methanol reduction on Zr6-MOF based composite catalysts: a critical review
Elif Tezel, Dag Kristian Sannes, Stian Svelle, Petra Ágota Szilágyi and Unni Olsbye
Mater. Adv., 2023, 4, 5479-5495 DOI: 10.1039/D3MA00345K
Connecting metal–organic cages (MOCs) for CO2 remediation
Javier Martí-Rujas
Mater. Adv., 2023, 4, 4333-4343 DOI: 10.1039/D3MA00477E
Materials Advances is always interested in considering high-quality articles on advanced functional materials and their manufacturing processes and we would be delighted if you would consider the journals for your next submission, which can be made via the Materials Advances online submission service. All submissions will be subject to initial assessment and peer review as appropriate according to the journals’ guidelines.
We hope you enjoy reading this collection and we look forward to seeing how this field progresses! Please continue to submit your exciting work on advanced functional materials to Materials Advances.
Do you have an idea for our next themed collection? Suggest a topic using our online form.
We are delighted to announce this years annual Materials Advances Paper Prize, celebrating the most significant articles published in the journal in the previous calendar year.
This year we recognise 3 outstanding papers that were published in 2023. Find the winner and runner-up papers below.
Lucas Ueberricke, Felix Mildner, Yuquan Wu, Elisa Thauer, Tom Wickenhäuser, Wen-Shan Zhang, Yana Vaynzof, Sven M. Elbert, Rasmus R. Schröder, Rüdiger Klingeler and Michael Mastalerz
Cristina Teixeira, Rosinda Fuentes-Pineda, Luísa Andrade, Adélio Mendes and Dávid Forgács
Imanda Jayawardena, Petri Turunen, Bruna Cambraia Garms, Alan Rowan, Simon Corrie and Lisbeth Grøndahl
If you want to be in with a chance of winning the Materials Advances Paper Prize in a future year then submit your next high quality materials science research to the journal here.