RSC Mechanochemistry is delighted to announce it’s newest themed collection of papers: A Festschrift for Professor Frédéric Lamaty in honour of his 60th Birthday!
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Frédéric graduated as a chemical engineer in 1988 from the École Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon (ESCIL, now ESCPE, France). In 1992, he received his Ph.D. from Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN, USA) under the supervision of Nobel laureate Professor Ei-ichi Negishi, working in the field of Pd-catalysed cyclisations. He then joined, as a Rhône-Poulenc postdoctoral fellow, the group of Professor Marc Julia at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he contributed to the total synthesis of Vitamin A. In 1994, Frédéric obtained a permanent position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Montpellier and is currently Directeur de Recherche at the Max Mousseron Institute for Biomolecules (IBMM). In 2026, he was promoted to the exceptional grade of Directeur de Recherche CNRS, as a recognition of his contribution to chemistry over his career. Since 2011, he has been heading the Green Chemistry and Enabling Technologies team (www.greenchem.cnrs.fr) at IBMM. His research, spanning catalysis, organic chemistry, and green chemistry, is devoted to the synthesis of amino acids, peptides, heterocycles and organometallics, the use of alternative solvents (PEG, PEG–IL, glycerol, water) and the development of enabling technologies with a particular emphasis on mechanochemistry. In 2011, he was awarded the Prix des Techniques Innovantes pour l’Environnement ADEME–Pollutec for his pioneering work on peptide mechanosynthesis under solvent-free conditions.
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Beyond his impressive curriculum, Frédéric’s most lasting impact may well be the way in which he has shaped a generation of mechanochemists. Long before mechanochemistry became the rapidly growing discipline that we see today, Frédéric and his team demonstrated, with patience and conviction, that ball-milling and reactive extrusion are not exotic curiosities but powerful, scalable and genuinely sustainable tools for synthetic chemistry. His seminal contributions to mechanochemical peptide coupling addressing one of the most ubiquitous transformations in chemistry without recourse to large volumes of hazardous solvents opened a new chapter for green peptide synthesis and inspired countless follow-up studies worldwide.
Equally important is Frédéric’s role as an ambassador of the field. Among other things Frédéric has created two genuine homes for mechanochemists in Montpellier. In 2015, the inaugural Mech’cheM symposium brought together many of the field’s past and future leading figures, including solid-state and materials chemists, crystal engineers, and catalysis experts, at a time when mechanochemistry was still emerging from its niche status. A decade later, the Mech’cheM 2025 symposium returned to Montpellier, with participants from organic synthesis, polymer and biomaterials chemistry, energy storage, process engineering, and data-driven method development. There was also strong representation from younger scientists and industry, which reflects the growing interest in this field. Together, these two meetings achieved more than merely showcasing excellent science; they helped transform a loosely connected set of research activities into a self-aware community. This gave mechanochemists a shared language and history, and a sense that they are developing a common field rather than working in isolated subdisciplines. Anyone who has had the privilege of working with Frédéric knows his characteristic combination of scientific curiosity, kindness, humour, and a deep sense of mentorship qualities that have made his group at IBMM a magnet for students and postdocs from all over the world.
This themed collection brings together contributions from friends, collaborators and colleagues who all wished to honour Frédéric with a contribution that reflects the breadth of modern mechanochemistry, a field he helped to shape. The papers gathered here span fundamental studies of mechanochemical reactivity, methodological developments, new synthetic protocols, materials applications, scale-up and process intensification, as well as data-driven and bibliometric perspectives on where the field is heading.
Please join us in celebrating Professor Lamaty’s birthday, as well as reading the papers published in this wonderfully compiled Festschrift.
| Selective mechanochemical conversion of post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate waste into hcp and fcu UiO-66 metal–organic frameworks
Tomislav Stolar*, Dilara Bayram, Anastasia May; Remie Sundermann, Carsten Prinz, Klas Meyer, Anett Myxa, Jana Falkenhagen & Franziska Emmerling* RSC Mechanochem. (2026) 3 (2): 293–300. DOI: 10.1039/d4mr00126e |
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The role of ball mass, surface, and contact dynamics in mechanochemical reactions
Marisol F. Rappen, Justus Mäder, Tino Schwemin, Sven Grätz & Lars Borchardt* RSC Mechanochem. (2026) 3 (3): 357–362. DOI: 10.1039/d5mr00146c |
| Transformation of mechanochemistry from a comminution tool to powerful chemical science: a bibliometric data-driven perspective
Matej Baláž* RSC Mechanochem. (2026) 3 (4): 501–511. DOI: 10.1039/d5mr00121h |
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Mechanosynthesis of cocrystals and coamorphous binary drug–drug systems with apremilast core: structural and biological studies
K. Trzeciak, R. Dolot, K. Dudek, E. Wielgus, S. Kazmierski, P. Paluch, J. Czernek, J. Brus, K. Wiktorska, I. Wadas, K. Głowacka, A. Lange & M. J. Potrzebowski* RSC Mechanochem. (2026) 3 (3): 444–458. DOI: 10.1039/d6mr00014b |
| Ball-milling synthesis of α-bromoacrylates from solvent-free in situ prepared ethyl diethylbromophosphonate
Marie Caldiero, Jean-Philippe Bouillon* & Thomas Castanheiro* RSC Mechanochem. (2026) 3 (3): 459–465. DOI: 10.1039/d6mr00029k |
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Upgrading coal tar products into hypercrosslinked polymers by mechanosynthesis
A. M. Borrero-López, J. Castro-Gutiérrez*, E. Derveaux, W. Marchal & A. Celzard, V. Fierro* RSC Mechanochem. (2026) 3 (4): 600–613. DOI: 10.1039/d5mr00101c |
| Amano-PS-IM-catalyzed mechanochemical enzymatic acylative kinetic resolution of secondary alcohols
Koji Kubota*, Yuri Kamakura, Taiga Takeda & Hajime Ito* RSC Mechanochem. (2026), Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/d6mr00028b |
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When breaking heterojunctions unlocks a reactive compromise in photomechanocatalytic phenol degradation over P25-TiO2
Guillaume Demily, Nicolas Kania, Anne Ponchel & Stéphane Menuel* RSC Mechanochem. (2026), Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/d6mr00034g |
| Determining the frequency of reactive collisions in particulate mechanochemical processes with discrete element method simulations
Jacob Sweet, Elisavet Anglou, Yuchen Chang, Kinga Gołąbek, Carsten Sievers* & Fani Boukouvala* RSC Mechanochem. (2026), Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/d6mr00023a |
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Aging effects in mechanochemical amide coupling mediated by carbodiimide and uronium-type coupling reagents
Suman Sahoo, Ketren-Marlein Lootus, Anna Vassiljeva, Tatsiana Jarg, Riina Aav* & Dzmitry Kananovich* RSC Mechanochem. (2026), Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/d6mr00050a |
| Unveiling amorphous intermediates in mechanochemical metal–organic synthesis through in situ PXRD and THz-Raman coupling
Laura Macchietti, Lucia Casali, Laura Contini, Yihua Jiang, Tom Leyssens, Franziska Emmerling* & Fabrizia Grepioni* RSC Mechanochem. (2026), Just Accepted Article DOI: 10.1039/D6MR00045B |
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Are you ready to contribute to the future of mechanochemistry? RSC Mechanochemistry offers you an inclusive and dedicated home for the ideas, scientific language and approaches that cut across the many disciplines mechanochemistry touches. Here we are seeking to build knowledge, as well as foster innovation and discovery at this forefront of chemistry. Whether you are seeking to understand the fundamentals of mechanochemistry, or you are excited by its applications and potential, this journal is for you. All of the content in this journal is gold open access, which means that you can read every article for free. |
