RSC Advances Blog

Welcome to our new Editorial Board members: Surajit Ghosh, Fabienne Dumoulin and Bob Baker

01 Aug 2022

We are delighted to welcome Professor Surajit Ghosh, Dr Fabienne Dumoulin and Dr Bob Baker the RSC Advances team!

Surajit Ghosh was born in West Bengal, India. He studied Organic Chemistry at the University of Calcutta, India, and gained his Master of Science in Organic Chemistry in 2000. Then, he moved to Syngene International Pvt. Ltd (Biocon INDIA Group) and worked as a Scientist till July 2004 on a drug discovery project. Subsequently, he moved to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in August 2004 for his doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Sandeep Verma in the area of Peptide Self-assembly.

After completing his Ph.D. in July 2008, he received a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cell Biology and Biophysics Division of European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany with Dr Thomas Surrey (August 2008), where he worked on the organization of microtubule and molecular motor proteins till December 2010. He joined CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology Kolkata, India in 2011, and worked as a Principal Scientist till July 2019. Subsequently, he joined as a Professor in the Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur in July 2019. He is a recipient of the BIOCON Tribute award, EMBL Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, Ramanujan Fellowship, Indian Peptide Society Young Scientist Award, Asima Chatterjee Young Scientist Award, Syamasri Gupta Young Scientist Award, CSIR-CDRI Award for Excellence in Drug Research (2020) and SERB-STAR Award (2020). He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2016), and the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology (2018). At IIT Jodhpur he is leading his group with current research focus on the areas of Chemical Neuroscience, Chemical Biology and the Development of Biophysical Platform/Biosensor.

Browse a selection of Surajit’s RSC publications:

Designed hybrid anticancer nuclear-localized peptide inhibits aggressive cancer cell proliferation
Prasenjit Mondal, Saswat Mohapatra, Debmalya Bhunia, Prabir Kumar Gharai, Nabanita Mukherjee, Varsha Gupta, Satyajit Ghosh and Surajit Ghosh
RSC Med. Chem., 2022, 13, 196-201

An overview of key potential therapeutic strategies for combat in the COVID-19 battle
Gaurav Das, Surojit Ghosh, Shubham Garg, Satyajit Ghosh, Aniket Jana, Ramkamal Samat, Nabanita Mukherjee, Rajsekhar Roy and Surajit Ghosh
RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 28243-28266

A bis-indole/carbazole based C5-curcuminoid fluorescent probe with large Stokes shift for selective detection of biothiols and application to live cell imaging
Pinaki Bhattacharjee, Sourav Chatterjee, Anushree Achari, Abhijit Saha, Debkumar Nandi, Chiranjit Acharya, Kasturi Chatterjee, Surajit Ghosh, Snehasikta Swarnakar and Parasuraman Jaisankar
Analyst, 2020, 145, 1184-1189

Fabienne Dumoulin is a faculty at the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Acibadem Mehmet Ali Aydınlar University. She studied first biology, graduated in biochemistry then completed her PhD with a European Label in Organic Chemistry at the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France (2002). After a post-doc in Pisa, Italy, she settled in Turkey in 2005. She has been awarded several Young Scientist Awards: TUBA-GEBİP from the Turkish Academy of Sciences (2015), BAGEP from the Bilim Akademisi (2015) and the Mustafa N Parlar Foundation of METU (2016). She guest-edited a themed issue ‘Nano- and Molecular Engineering of Photosensitisers’ for Photobiol. Photochem. Sci. (Nov 2018), has co-edited the book series “Porphyrin Science by Women” published in January 2021, and recently contributed to the book series Fundamentals of Porphyrin Chemistry: A 21st Century Approach. She has co-authored 85+ publications (research articles, reviews and book chapters), and has supervised a dozen of Master and PhD students so far. She is an associate editor of RSC Advances since 2015.

Her research interests focus on the design and synthesis of tetrapyrrolic derivatives, mainly phthalocyanines for photodynamic therapy to treat cancer and combat AMR, either molecular or with nanotechnology. She is also interested in the energy and catalytic applications of phthalocyanines.

Browse a selection of Fabienne’s RSC publications:

The unique features and promises of phthalocyanines as advanced photosensitisers for photodynamic therapy of cancer
Pui-Chi Lo, M. Salomé Rodríguez-Morgade, Ravindra K. Pandey, Dennis K. P. Ng, Tomás Torres and Fabienne Dumoulin
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2020, 49, 1041-1056

Phthalocyanine-based mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles: NIR photodynamic efficiency and siRNA photochemical internalization
Gülçin Ekineker, Christophe Nguyen, Sümeyra Bayır, Sofia Dominguez Gil, Ümit İşci, Morgane Daurat, Anastasia Godefroy, Laurence Raehm, Clarence Charnay, Erwan Oliviero, Vefa Ahsen, Magali Gary-Bobo, Jean-Olivier Durand and Fabienne Dumoulin
Chem. Commun., 2019, 55, 11619-11622

Photophysical properties of palladium/platinum tetrasulfonyl phthalocyanines and their application in triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion
Yuanyuan Che, Wenbo Yang, Geliang Tang, Fabienne Dumoulin, Jianzhang Zhao, Lang Liu and Ümit İşci
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2018, 6, 5785-5793

Dr Bob Baker was born in Blaenavon, South Wales. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Warwick and his PhD studies under the supervision of Prof. P. G. Edwards at Cardiff University (1997-2001) on early transition metal triphosphamacrocycles. He then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow with Prof. Cameron Jones (2001-2005), working on low oxidation state group 13 compounds, followed by an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship held at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, working with Prof. Dr. Matthias Tamm on substituted cyclohepatrienyl early transition metal complexes. From 2006-2008 he was a Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry at Nottingham Trent University, before moving to Trinity College in January 2009. His research interests are in fundamental and applied actinide chemistry and the development of new transition metal complexes for catalysis.

Browse a selection of Bob’s RSC publications:

A multi-technique study of altered granitic rock from the Krunkelbach Valley uranium deposit, Southern Germany
Ivan Pidchenko, Stephen Bauters, Irina Sinenko, Simone Hempel, Lucia Amidani, Dirk Detollenaere, Laszlo Vinze, Dipanjan Banerjee, Roelof van Silfhout, Stepan N. Kalmykov, Jörg Göttlicher, Robert J. Baker and Kristina O. Kvashnina
RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 25529-25539

A computational investigation of orbital overlap: Versus energy degeneracy covalency in [UE2]²⁺ (E = O, S, Se, Te) complexes
James A. Platts and Robert J. Baker
Dalton Trans., 2020, 49, 1077-1088

Perfluorinated phosphine and hybrid P–O ligands for Pd catalysed C–C bond forming reactions in solution and on Teflon supports
Farzana Begum, Muhammad Ikram, Brendan Twamley and Robert J. Baker
RSC Adv., 2019, 9, 28936-28945

RSC Advances Royal Society of Chemistry

Submit to RSC Advances today! 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.

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Advancing with Advances- How to publish and not perish (Part 1)

27 Jul 2022

By Dr Zita Zachariah, Assistant Editor.

Why did the editor reject my manuscript?

Guest post by Professor Robert Baker, Trinity College Dublin

Most of the readers of this blog are driven by curiosity. The question “why?” is something we have at the forefront of our scientific endeavours. Why did this reaction give black insoluble gunk? Why is the reaction yield 5% (rounded up)? Some of the more interesting results have come from questioning the “why?” of failed reactions – Vaska’s complex was discovered by accident, Kubas discovered the first dihydrogen complexes because of a poor yield, and there are many more examples from all branches of chemistry. Then we spend ages analysing the data; “why?” did the NMR spectrum have too many peaks. After that we put all the answers to our “why?” on paper and send it to a journal for peer review. But how many times do we receive the following email from an editor rejecting our carefully crafted manuscript?

“ Dear author,

Thank you for your recent submission to RSC Advances, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. All manuscripts are initially assessed by the editors to ensure they meet the criteria for publication in the journal.

After careful evaluation of your manuscript, I regret to inform you that I do not find your manuscript suitable for publication in RSC Advances because it does not meet the novelty and impact requirements of the journal. Therefore your article has been rejected from RSC Advances.

Yours sincerely,

The Editor”

Professor Robert James Baker is an Assistant Professor at the School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin and an Associate Editor as well as Editorial Board member of RSC Advances

In this series we will explore some of the pitfalls of submission from an editor’s point of view and move your science forward. From experience, some of the common problems revolve around cover letters, how the manuscript is presented and how to respond to referees’ comments – “why” did they not get it? “why” didn’t I think of that?

Later on in this blog series, I will be sharing some of the cover letters and reviewer responses that accompanied rejected as well as successful manuscripts that I authored (and the stories behind them) in order to highlight that not only manuscripts require to be revised. As an Associate Editor in the areas of spectroscopy, homogenous catalysis and inorganic chemistry at RSC Advances, I come across several manuscripts with cover letters in the following format:

“Dear Editor:

Here we submit the paper entitled “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”. We would be grateful if the manuscript could be reviewed and considered for publication in RSC Advances. Thank you for your kind consideration.

Signed- The authors”

Such redundant cover letters do not help the cause of the manuscript. At the very minimum, the cover letter should clearly state the advance made to literature in a manner that helps editors and reviewers evaluate the manuscript.

Here are my:

Most common reasons for rejecting a manuscript without review?

Does the introduction set the scene – what is the problem the authors are looking at and why is it different to the literature. Context is key. So very short introductions with few references to the state-of-the-art are not good.
Remember it is a results AND discussion section on a discussion of YOUR results. Again context – are your results good, bad or indifferent?
Does the introduction and conclusion match the results? It is surprising how many manuscripts give a very ‘templated’ introduction on results from the last paper and not this current one.

Best piece of advice to a submitting author?

You are telling a story of WHY your results are important. Lead the reviewer and reader by the hand, explain everything that is important, but do it succinctly. The reader of your article wants to learn something new, so tell them what is new.

Having a manuscript rejected by an editor or peer reviewers is sometimes tough to take, especially in the early stages of your career. It’s frustrating and annoying but it happens to everyone; the comments are on your work, not you as a person or scientist. The best (though not necessarily easiest) way to look at it is as a learning experience. For example, I submitted a manuscript early in my career with the elemental analysis mixed up between two compounds; a referee picked up on this and the whole report was:

“The bulk purity of the compounds has not been proven, therefore none of the conclusions are remotely valid. Reject.”

I have not made the same mistake again!

You are welcome to send in any questions you have about peer-review or publishing to advances-rsc@rsc.org or post them on Twitter @RSCAdvances #AdvancingWithAdvances.

Tune in next week for our feature on how manuscripts are rejected by professional editors on scope and/or data concerns!

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An Interview with Shirley Nakagaki, President of the Brazilian Chemical Society

22 Jul 2022

By Kate Jones, Assistant Editor.

We are delighted to announce that Shirley Nakagaki, one of our Editorial Board members, has been elected as president of the Brazilian Chemical Society.

This makes Shirley the second ever female researcher to be president of this society in the forty-five years it has been active. To celebrate this achievement, we asked Shirley the following questions, and we hope you find her answers as motivating as we do!

Can you explain your area of research for a non-specialist in the area?

My main interest lies in the study (preparation, characterization and application) of molecules called metalloporphyrins. The key application of these molecules in my research group is in the preparation of compounds known as catalysts (a kind of chemical that accelerates chemical reactions) for oxidation, sequential and esterification reactions. For example, an important oxidation reaction is one that results in an acid species (adipic acid) which is one of the reactants that produces polymeric fibres like nylon. These fibres are used in a range of materials from pantyhose to very sophisticated devices that are part of the International Space Station. In some cases, the catalytic species I study and develop are inspired by biological systems that act as catalysts, in a chemical model known as biomimetic chemistry. In particular, this means that my compounds that act as catalysts can react in a similar way to enzymes, a chemical component found in very efficient biological systems that accelerate reactions necessary to keep organisms alive. In some cases, the catalytic species I study and develop are inspired by biological systems in a chemical model known as biomimetic chemistry. This means my compounds act as catalysts, in a very similar way to enzymes.

What work are you the proudest of?

Fortunately, I can say that I am proud of all my work developed in my 30-year career in the chemical sciences. I have been a supervisor to many chemistry students, supporting them through their undergraduate projects, master’s degree dissertations and PhD theses. These projects have resulted in different products such as patents and scientific papers. However, the education of new chemistry professionals, be it researchers or chemistry professors, is probably my most important job.

What do you find motivating?

My motivation comes from different parts. Firstly, through being a professor, my motivation comes from my students in the classroom or in the lab. When they ask me about chemistry in general or particularly inorganic chemistry, I find motivation in trying to explain to them in the best way that they can solve whatever doubts they have. Another source of motivation comes from realizing every day, and at the end of every paper I read, that there are many things we still do not know and cannot explain in the light of science, particularly in the chemical sciences. The chemical knowledge is vast and fascinating. Everything around us, in some way, involves a chemical process that can or will be explained, either now or in some distant future, based on the advance of the scientific knowledge.

How did your career path lead you to become elected as the president of the Brazilian Chemical Society?

When I was a chemistry undergraduate student in Sao Paulo University, Ribeirao Preto city campus (countryside part of the Sao Paulo State), I joined Professor Yassuko Iamamoto’s research group with a scholarship to work in the development of catalysts for oxidation reactions. Our first research results were presented in the annual meeting of the SBQ – (Brazilian Chemical Society) of which I became an associate in 1983. After that, every year I attended the annual meeting and presented the research results of my master’s degree or PhD studies. After I finished my graduate school, I joined Federal University of Paraná (a southern state in Brazil) and created my own research group. In the SBQ I joined as a director in the inorganic chemistry division, since I believed and continue to believe that I can contribute with my work to build a strong and big Brazilian chemical society that represents the strength of the chemical science in Brazilian universities as well as Brazilian research centres.

What will your role entail and what are you aiming to achieve?

Firstly, I believe that my role as president of the SBQ is to contribute daily to the growth of our society and to foster the good work of the previous 21 presidents. In addition, I have a big responsibility to show young chemists, graduate and undergraduate students, the importance of our society as a civil organization. They are a voice to be heard in issues in which the chemical community can contribute to the greater society. We also hope that our voice can be one that includes, fosters, and promotes quality scientific discussion, being plural, diverse and inclusive.

What are the biggest challenges facing the Brazilian Chemistry Community?

Regarding the chemical sciences, there are many challenges we face. For one, providing quality scientific education for young people in a country with continental figures and big social and income inequalities. We find a good, international level education in one part of the country and a complete lack of basic infrastructure in other parts. Regarding the scientific research, we face low and declining levels of investment, which affects the continuity of good research programs. We face many challenges to become the country we dream of.

What are the most exciting areas in the Brazilian Chemistry Community?

We have many strong research areas in Brazil. These include using natural products to explore our big biodiversity, the preparation and use of new materials, and we have excellent researchers making contributions to the new and alternative energies. In addition, given our great natural resource reserve, we have brilliant researchers working on the extraction of new substances from our biodiverse biomes and developing new pharmacological alternatives from these results. Some of these natural findings are already being prepared in our universities. Our scientific community is very versatile and creative. Despite receiving little financial support, we have produced excellent results. This can be seen in the quality of our Brazilian researchers’ publications around the world. For example, I can quote the Brazilian Science Panorama 2015-2020 report from the Science, Technology and Innovation Observatory (CGEE- OCTI), which shows the Brazilian production of scientific research papers grew 32% in 2020 in comparison to 2015, while the global production only grew 27%. During these five years more than 11 million papers were indexed in Web of Science (WoS), of which 372 thousand are papers with at least one author linked to our Brazilian institutions, giving us the 13^th position in global production, surpassing Russia (14^th), Iran (15^th), the Netherlands (16^th) and Turkey (17^th). In 2020, this participation reached 3.2% of global scientific research production. These figures are considering scientific papers as a whole, but according to WoS, chemistry is the second area of research in number of indexed papers, lagging only behind the engineering area. These are very relevant figures as it shows the strength of chemistry in Brazilian scientific research, which is concentrated mostly in public universities where our SBQ associates work.

How does it feel being the 2^nd woman to hold this position and how is this going to inspire a younger generation of female chemists?

I can see in our long line of SBQ female associates so many chemists that could be in my place. Women are about 50% of all SBQ associates. We have excellent scientists, chemical educators and researchers in our pool of associates. I am not the first female president; I am only the second one in this rough path opened by Prof. Vanderlan Bolzani. But, paraphrasing vice-president Kamala Harris, “I will make sure I will not be the last”. Hopefully, my work will serve as an example and inspiration so that women in SBQ can see that it is possible to be in my position and occupy this space, if we serve with dedication and love to the SBQ.

You have been a member of the RSC Advances Editorial Board since September 2020. What would you say are the biggest strengths of the journal?

Being a member of the RSC Advances Editorial Board has been an interesting and significant experience, considering the size and relevance of the RSC to the world and to the SBQ. Through the years both societies have not only kept good relations but developed key partnerships of research. From my remote participation on the meetings (due to the new coronavirus pandemic) I gathered that the main interest of this journal is to deliver papers of unquestionable scientific quality through an open access journal. On this aspect, the journal invests greatly in its editorial board, giving them adequate support for their job. Moreover, I found it very positive the journal’s actions towards making it more inclusive and transparent.

What do you hope to achieve in your career over the next 10 years?

What I hope to achieve in my career over the next 10 years is continuous progress both from scientific and educational standpoints. I hope to continue to investigate multifunctional catalytic solids aimed at sequential reactions as opposed to single process catalysts. I believe they are more adequate alternatives considering the reduction in cost, time and use of available resources during the preparation of reactions. Furthermore, shaping new generations of chemists has always been a career goal of mine, so I hope I can continue to give classes and participate in the education and formation of professionals in this area of science that is dear to my heart, Chemistry!

Please join me in extending our congratulations to Shirley for this achievement. We hope you continue to inspire the next generation of chemists!

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Introduction to Advancing with Advances: How to publish and not perish?

21 Jul 2022

By Kate Jones, Assistant Editor.

A blog series on how manuscripts are rejected at RSC Advances.

Over the five next weeks, we will be releasing a new post every Wednesday in collaboration with Professor Robert Baker, Trinity College, Dublin who is an experienced Associate Editor and member of the RSC Advances Editorial Board. We will be shedding light on why manuscripts are rejected from RSC Advances and what you could do as an author to increase your chances of acceptance.

We have lined up for you:

An introduction from Prof. Baker, who will draw on his experiences as an author and Associate Editor on how editors assess manuscripts.
Perspectives from in-house Editors on why manuscripts are rejected without peer-review.
Associate Editors at RSC Advances, who work in different research areas, reveal why they reject manuscripts and share their best advice with authors.
Tip and tricks on how not to write cover letters and respond to reviewer reports.
And in our final post, Professor Baker will summarise how small changes in the way research is presented could improve your manuscript.

I hope you are as excited as we are about this series, and we hope it will be helpful to anyone hoping to submit to RSC Advances. You are welcome to send in any questions you have about peer-review or publishing to advances-rsc@rsc.org.

Tune in next week for our first post from Professor Baker!

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RSC Advances Popular Advances – an interview with Emanuele Moioli

19 Jul 2022

By Claire Mitchell, Assistant Editor.

We are very pleased to introduce Dr Emanuele Moioli, the sole author of the RSC Advances article Linking heat and electricity supply for domestic users: an example of power-to-gas integration in a building. This paper became one of the newest additions to our Popular Advances collection. The Popular Advances Collection is a selection of well received RSC Advances articles, handpicked by our reviewers and handling editors.

Emanuele told us more about the work that went into this article and what he hopes to achieve in the future. If you would like to explore more of our Popular Advances, please find the full online collection here.

Meet the Author:

Emanuele Moioli studied chemical engineering at Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino (Italy). He then pursued a PhD focused on chemical reactor design and optimization as Marie-Curie fellow at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), in collaboration with the Swiss multinational Lonza. After graduation, he moved to EPFL (Switzerland) for a postdoc focused on the development of new catalysts and reactors for the CO₂ methanation reaction. In 2020 he started working as scientist at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) where he expanded his interest in the field of CO₂ methanation, including the research aspects considering the integration of energy storage technologies in the energy system.

Could you briefly explain the focus of your article to the non-specialist (in one or two sentences only) and why it is of current interest?

The focus of the research is a feasibility assessment of micro-scale power-to-gas systems to be applied in residential buildings. These systems link electricity to the gas grid, increasing the energy efficiency of the house.

How big an impact could your results potentially have?

These results could be directly applied in the realisation of such systems, generating a disruptive change in the way electricity and gas supply are guaranteed in residential buildings. This can significantly increase the renewable energy production in micro-scale applications.

Could you explain the motivation behind this study?

The motivation behind the study consists in finding the key points to link electricity and gas grids, increasing energy storage potential and the penetration of renewable energy.

In your opinion, what are the key design considerations for your study?

The key design consideration of the study is the possibility of linking electricity and heat supply in the system. While standard power-to-gas systems suffer from low efficiency, this study shows that the self consumption of waste heat from the reaction is beneficial to decrease the global energy demand.

Which part of the work towards this paper proved to be most challenging?

The most challenging part of the study is the collection of reliable data, which can be used for the system design. To overcome this limitation, the study was based on field observations, linking weather conditions and electricity, heat demand and availability.

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

I am most excited at the fact that this study shows how close we are from the application of power-to-gas in a wide range of specific cases!

What is the next step? What work is planned

The next step is the implementation of the results in the case investigated. We are currently working with an industrial partner to make this demonstration possible.

Linking heat and electricity supply for domestic users: an example of power-to-gas integration in a building

Emanuele Moioli*

RSC Adv., 2022,12, 10355-10365 DOI:10.1039/D2RA00951J

Submit to RSC Advances today! 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 Popular Advances, Reviews, Collections & more by following us on Twitter. You can also keep informed by signing up to our E-Alerts.

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RSC Advances Outstanding Student Paper Awards 2021

15 Jul 2022

By Sarah Rainford, Deputy Editor.

We are delighted to announce our winners for the RSC Advances Outstanding Student Paper Awards 2021.

These awards recognise outstanding work published in the journal in 2021, for which a substantial component of the research was conducted by a student. We received over 900 nominations, which were shortlisted, and the winning papers were then selected by our Editorial Board and Associate Editors. Below, we highlighted the winner of each subject category, and highlight the research paper that won them the award.

Analytical chemistry

Vanessa N. Ataide, São Paulo University, Brazil

Vanessa is recognised for her outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Enhanced performance of pencil-drawn paper-based electrodes by laser-scribing treatment.

Vanessa graduated in Chemistry (2015) from Presbyterian Mackenzie University. She received her M.Sc. (2018) from the Institute of Chemistry of the University of São Paulo under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Thiago R. L. C. Paixão. She is currently a Ph.D. student with the same supervisor and in the same institution. Her research interests include electrochemical paper-based devices, carbon materials, fabrication of electrochemical sensors using low-cost techniques, and analytical applications involving clinical and environmental interest species. She receives financial support from São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP (Grant Number: 2018/14462-0). She is currently doing an internship at Colorado State University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Charles S. Henry, supported by FAPESP (Grant Number: 2021/10388-2). She is developing carbon-based low-cost electrochemical devices for the detection of Covid-19.

Biological & medicinal chemistry

Nova O. Dora, University of Kent, UK

Nova is recognised for her outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Supramolecular self-associating amphiphiles (SSAs) as nanoscale enhancers of cisplatin anticancer activity.

Nova grew up in London and developed a strong interest in Science whilst at school. She went on to complete her undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Kent, Canterbury during which she completed her final year research project investigating mechanisms of drug resistance in cancer cell lines. This was an area of great interest and so Nova then stayed at the University of Kent to complete a Masters by Research investigating the potential of supramolecular self-associating amphiphiles (SSAs) as novel cancer treatments. After completing her masters program, Nova completed a PGCE in secondary education and is now a science teacher at a secondary school in West London. In her free time Nova likes to partake in sports such as netball and swimming and enjoys travelling and reading.

Catalysis

Jairus L. Lamola, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Jairus is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Evaluation of P-bridged biaryl phosphine ligands in palladium-catalysed Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reactions.

Jairus Lamola was born in Sebokeng, a small township in Gauteng Province, South Africa. He graduated with BSc in Chemistry and Biochemistry, and BSc Hons Chemistry degrees from the University of Johannesburg (South Africa) in 2015 and 2016, respectively. He then obtained a Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry, in 2018 under the supervision of Dr Edwin Mmutlane. He received the Faculty of Science Dean’s award for the best final-year BSc student in 2015 as well as the top third-year student awards in Chemistry and Biochemistry (2015).

He started PhD studies in Organic Chemistry in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Chris Maumela and co-supervision of Prof. Cedric Holzapfel and Dr Paseka Moshapo. His doctoral research focuses on the design and development of novel P-bridged biaryl phosphine ligands for palladium-catalysed cross-coupling reactions. The PhD study has so far resulted in the publication of four research articles in international peer reviewed journals. Although he spends most of his time learning new aspects of life, he also enjoys cooking, storytelling, admiring nature and its biodiversity.

Computational and theoretical chemistry

Abhishek T. Sose, Virginia Tech, USA

Abhishek is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Modelling drug adsorption in metal–organic frameworks: the role of solvent.

Abhishek Tejrao Sose is currently a fourth-year Ph.D. student working under the supervision of Dr. Sanket Deshmukh in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Virginia Tech. His research is focused on the integration of the newly emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI) with Molecular Dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to accelerate the design of new hybrid materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), for biomedical and energy applications. A large part of his research also involves the development of accurate and transferable all-atom (AA) and coarse-grained (CG) models that are accelerated by optimization algorithms.

After finishing his bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in 2017, Abhishek decided to pursue his doctoral studies at Virginia Tech. Thus far, he has published four peer-reviewed journal articles (including three first-authored articles) as part of his Ph.D. experience and given 6 oral presentations and 5 poster presentations at national and international conferences. Recently he was awarded the ‘Best poster award’ at Macromolecules Innovation Institute (MII) Technical Conference & review 2022 at Virginia Tech for his work on investigating the molecular-level interactions between polymers and functionalized metal-organic frameworks. Moreover, his work on the development of forcefield interactions between MoS2 and water was featured as a supplementary cover for The Journal of Physical Chemistry C (JPCC). His latest work on the ‘Investigation of structure and dynamics of water confined between hybrid layered materials of graphene, boron nitride, and molybdenum disulfide’ was published in The Journal of Material Science as an invited article.

Energy chemistry

Alexandra H. Teodor, University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA

Alexandra is recognised for her outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Aqueous-soluble bipyridine cobalt(ii/iii) complexes act as direct redox mediators in photosystem I-based biophotovoltaic devices.

Alexandra Heather Teodor was born in 1995. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry in 2016 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, focusing her studies on analytical and physical biochemistry. Alexandra then enrolled in the doctoral program of the joint University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Graduate School of Genome Science and Technology. She joined the laboratory of Dr. Barry Bruce to pursue her doctoral research in bio-hybrid electronic devices, furthering her interests in spectroscopy, physical, and electrochemical sciences. Alexandra graduated with her PhD in 2022, and accepted a job offer as a Space Photovoltaics Scientist for The Aerospace Corporation in California. She hopes to continue doing impactful work that will give back to the community.

Environmental chemistry

Yin Sim Ng, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

Yin Sim Ng is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in The enhancement of treatment capacity and the performance of phytoremediation system by fed batch and periodic harvesting

Yin Sim Ng was born and raised in Penang, Malaysia. He gained his Bachelor of Engineering (Hons.) in Chemical Engineering, from Universiti Sains Malaysia in 2014. During undergraduate studies, he secured JPA scholarship from Public Service Department of Malaysia. He thereafter successfully registered himself as a Graduate Engineer with Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM). His passion and interest in biology, environmentally consciousness and the exposure to the final year project drove him to take up graduate studies in research related to phytoremediation and green technology (sustainable water and wastewater treatment). He joined Associate Professor Dr. Derek Chan Juinn Chieh group specialised in biochemical process and biotechnology involving plant and cell in the same faculty.

His Masters’ research focussed on phytoremediation studies in evaluating the exact phytoremediation rate (inorganics removal such as ammonia, nitrate and phosphate) by axenic method, the performance in fish farm wastewater and enhancing their treatment capacity and efficiency. He succeeded in isolation of the axenic cultures of Hemianthus callitrichoides, Vesicularia montagnei (Christmas moss), Salvinia molesta, Spirodela polyrhiza, and Lemna sp. for his study and side projects. He also received travel bursary from the university to attend International Phytotechnologies Conference in Hangzhou, China that organised by International Phytotechnology Society (IPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISSCAS) in Autumn 2016. He obtained Master of Science (Chemical Engineering) in 2018. His doctorate studies concentrate on the role, mechanism, and mitigation of fouling from marine algae and their organics in the membrane distillation system. He obtained MyMaster Scholarship from Ministry of Education Malaysia and USM Fellowship from the university for his studies. So far, he has published 8 international journal papers and 1 conference proceedings (ISI and Scopus indexed). He was invited to perform 2 manuscript reviews in Journal of Hazardous Materials. He is also a member of Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) and Microbiology Society, UK.

Food chemistry

Yao Lu, Renmin University of China, China

Yao Lu is recognised for her outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Promotion effects of flavonoids on browning induced by enzymatic oxidation of tyrosinase: structure–activity relationship

Yao Lu received her M.S degree from the Department of Chemistry, Renmin University of China in 2021, under the guidance of Prof. Rui-Min Han. Her research field is physical chemistry mainly concerning the interactions of flavonoids with tyrosinase. Her research interest is biochemical reaction mechanism in the perspective of optical spectroscopy.

Inorganic chemistry

Aayushi Arora & Preeti Oswal, Doon University, India

Aayushi & Preeti are recognised for their outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Catalytically active nanosized Pd9Te4 (telluropalladinite) and PdTe (kotulskite) alloys: first precursor-architecture controlled synthesis using palladium complexes of organotellurium compounds as single source precursors

Ms. Aayushi Arora who was born in Agra (INDIA) in the year 1993, studied at Doon University Dehradun (2017-2021) for Ph.D. under supervision of Dr. Arun Kumar. She has been the recipient of the highly prestigious Indo-U.S. Fellowship for Women in STEMM (WISTEMM). With this fellowship, she carried out research work in 2020 at Texas A&M University, U.S.A under supervision of Prof. John A. Gladysz. She has also been felicitated by the Hon’ble Governor of the State of Uttarakhand (INDIA) at Rajbhawan on Uttarakhand Foundation Day for her achievements as a young woman in science. Her research includes development and applications of new catalytic systems, designing fluorescent probes for sensing of metal ions and Werner’s complexes for hydrogen bond donor catalysis. She has contributed to publishing more than two dozen of publications including articles and book chapters. In a short span of time, her h-index is 8.

Preeti Oswal was born in Himachal Pradesh, India in 1995. After receiving B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Chemistry in year 2017, she became the recipient of a highly prestigious and national-level DST-INSPIRE fellowship from Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India for pursuing Ph.D. research for five years. For last 04 and half years, she has been a Ph.D. scholar at Department of Chemistry, Doon University Dehradun (INDIA) under supervision of Dr. Arun Kumar. She is working on designing novel organochalcogen and organophosphorous compounds which she uses as building blocks for catalysts and electrolysts. Her research experience includes homogeneous, heterogenous and nano-catalysis of various organic reactions such as Suzuki coupling, C-O coupling, aldehyde to amide transformation, allylation of aldehydes and Sonogashira coupling. She has also fabricated Pd₆P at nanoscale and explored its electrocatalytic application in hydrogen evolution reaction. At a very young age and in a short span of time, she has contributed to publishing more than 20 articles in the journals of high repute, and 4 book chapters.

Materials chemistry

Shyam K. Pahari, University of Massachusetts, USA

Shyam is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Designing high energy density flow batteries by tuning active-material thermodynamics

Shyam Pahari is a doctoral candidate in inorganic chemistry at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, studying energy materials in the lab of Prof. Patrick Cappillino. His dissertation research focuses on designing high energy-density active materials for non-aqueous redox flow batteries by examining the effect of molecular structure on thermodynamic properties of electrolytes. In particular, he investigates the interplay between solvation free energy and lattice enthalpy in determining active material solubility utilizing experimental and computational approaches.

Shyam is a first-generation college student and holds Master’s in Science from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu. Prior to joining UMass Dartmouth, he briefly worked as a high school chemistry teacher.

Nanoscience

Mina Shawky Adly, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

Mina is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Efficient removal of heavy metals from polluted water with high selectivity for Hg(ii) and Pb(ii) by a 2-imino-4-thiobiuret chemically modified MIL-125 metal–organic framework

Mina Fanous is currently a lecturer of physical chemistry at Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University. He earned his Bachelor of Science at Mansoura University, in 2012, and his master degree in Physical Chemistry from the same university. He received a joint supervision grant from the Ministry of Higher Education from 2019 to 2020. He has worked under the supervision of professor Samy El-Shall at the College of Humanities and Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA. In his thesis, he pioneered metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for different applications in adsorption and catalysis. He has obtained Ph.D. degree in surface chemistry and catalysis
in 2021 from Mansoura Univesity. Recently, Mina’s research focuses on the synthesis of new MOFs and their applications related to the environment and energy such as heavy metals removal, solar steam generation, and supercapacitors. He supervises research activities in the same field and teaches surface chemistry to bachelor students in different programs at the faculty of science as well as catalysis to students at the faculty of education. He has been involved in a collaborative research project financed by STDF in Egypt. He has seven publications
in high impacted journals, one in JACS journal.

Organic chemistry

Ajaz Ahmed, Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, India

Ajaz is recognised for his outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in Conversion of N-acyl amidines to amidoximes: a convenient synthetic approach to molnupiravir (EIDD-2801) from ribose

Ajaz Ahmed was born and brought up in the Poonch District of Jammu & Kashmir. He received B.Sc. from Govt Gandhi Memorial Science College Jammu, India, and M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from Bundelkhand University Jhansi, U. P. India. Following this, he joined Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM) Jammu, a laboratory under Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Jammu, Govt of India in August 2017 as Junior Research Fellow (JRF) after qualifying National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted by CSIR. He has cracked various national level exams like, CSIR-NET-JRF Dec.-2016, CSIR-NET-JRF-June 2017, GATE-2016, GATE-2019, and GATE-2020 conducted by IIT. He has recently submitted his thesis entitled “N-Glycosylation as a Tool Box for the Generation of Medicinally Important Nucleosides and Disaccharide Mimetics” to Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) for Ph.D degree under the supervision of Dr. Debaraj Mukherjee, Principal scientist in Natural Product and Medicinal Chemistry Division. His area of research is glycoscience which includes nucleoside chemistry, oligosaccharide synthesis, total synthesis of biologically active compounds, development of novel methods for glycosylation. and affordable routes for active phramacetical ingredients (API). He has 11 published papers in different reputed journals of organic chemistry and 2 review articles to his credits and also filed three patents related to API synthesis.

Physical chemistry

Rosaria Cercola, University of York, UK

Rosaria is recognised for her outstanding contribution in the research advance presented in A “one pot” mass spectrometry technique for characterizing solution- and gas-phase photochemical reactions by electrospray mass spectrometry

Rosaria Cercola joined Caroline Dessent’s group at the University of York in 2015 as a PhD student, where she explored the gas-phase photochemistry of biological and pharmaceutical molecules.

She also developed a passion for science communication and outreach throughout her journey. She is now the Editorial Assistant at Science in School, the European journal for science teachers funded and supported by EIROforum.

Outside of work, Rosaria is the founder of “PhD and then what?” where she addresses themes like life abroad, PhD journey and post PhD careers.

Please welcome us in congratulating all of our winners!

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May & June 2022 RSC Advances Review Articles

12 Jul 2022

By Sarah Rainford, Deputy Editor.

Welcome to May & June’s Review round up!

Every month we update our 2022 Reviews in RSC Advances collection to showcase all of the review articles published in RSC Advances in 2022. Don’t forget to come back next month to check out our latest reviews.

We hope you enjoy reading and as always, all of our articles are open access so you can easily share your favourites online and with your colleagues.

Explore the full collection!

Browse a selection of our May & June reviews below:

Catalytic valorisation of biomass levulinic acid into gamma valerolactone using formic acid as a H₂ donor: a critical review
Ayman Hijazi, Nidal Khalaf, Witold Kwapinski and J. J. Leahy
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 13673-13694

Water-soluble optical sensors: keys to detect aluminium in biological environment
Ajmal Roshan Unniram Parambil, Kavyashree P., Akshay Silswal and Apurba Lal Koner
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 13950-13970

Nanocomposites based on the graphene family for food packaging: historical perspective, preparation methods, and properties
Vinicius Rossa, Luanne Ester Monteiro Ferreira, Sancler da Costa Vasconcelos, Eric Thomas Tai Shimabukuro, Vinicius Gomes da Costa Madriaga, Anna Paula Carvalho, Sibele Berenice Castellã Pergher, Fernando de Carvalho da Silva, Vitor Francisco Ferreira, Carlos Adam Conte Junior and Thiago de Melo Lima
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 14084-14111

Halogen-free instinct flame-retardant waterborne polyurethanes: composition, performance, and application
Xuan Yin, Liqi Li, Haosheng Pang, Yunjun Luo and Bing Zhang
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 14509-14520

Liquid marbles, floating droplets: preparations, properties, operations and applications
Yukai Sun, Yelong Zheng, Chuntian Liu, Yihan Zhang, Shiying Wen, Le Song and Meirong Zhao
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 15296-15315

Light-responsive polyurethanes: classification of light-responsive moieties, light-responsive reactions, and their applications
Ki Yan Lam, Choy Sin Lee, Mallikarjuna Rao Pichika, Sit Foon Cheng and Rachel Yie Hang Tan
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 15261-15283

Gel scaffolds and emerging applications in biomedicine
Mani Rajasekar and Manivannan Lavanya
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 15925-15949

Biocatalytic conversion of sunlight and carbon dioxide to solar fuels and chemicals
Mandy Ching Man Yau, Martin Hayes and Shafeer Kalathil
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 16396-16411

Potential transition and post-transition metal sulfides as efficient electrodes for energy storage applications: review
Thirunavukarasu Kajana, Arumugam Pirashanthan, Dhayalan Velauthapillai, Akila Yuvapragasam, Shivatharsiny Yohi, Punniamoorthy Ravirajan and Meena Senthilnanthanan
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 18041-18062

A review on the degradation of acetaminophen by advanced oxidation process: pathway, by-products, biotoxicity, and density functional theory calculation
Mohammad Qutob, Mahmoud A. Hussein, Khalid A. Alamry and Mohd Rafatullah
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 18373-18396

Exosome-based drug delivery systems and their therapeutic applications
Jaewook Lee, Ji-Heon Lee, Kushal Chakraborty, Joon Hwanga and Yong-Kyu Lee
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 18475-18492

Recent developments in supramolecular complexes of azabenzenes containing one to four N atoms: synthetic strategies, structures, and magnetic properties
Juhi Singh, Suvam Kumar Panda and Akhilesh Kumar Singh
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 18945-18972

RSC Advances Royal Society of Chemistry

Submit to RSC Advances today! 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.

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May & June 2022 RSC Advances Popular Advances Articles

12 Jul 2022

By Sarah Rainford, Deputy Editor.

Welcome to May & June’s Popular Advances article round up!

Every month we update our 2022 RSC Advances Popular Advances Article Collection to showcase all of the articles selected by our reviewers and handling editors as Popular Advances in 2022. Don’t forget to come back next month to check out our latest Popular articles.

We hope you enjoy reading and as always, all of our articles are open access so you can easily share your favourites online and with your colleagues.

Explore the full collection!

A two-step screening to optimize the signal response of an auto-fluorescent protein-based biosensor
Shunsuke Tajima, Eiji Nakata, Reiko Sakaguchi, Masayuki Saimura, Yasuo Moric and Takashi Morii
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 15407-15419

N,N-Dimethylformamide-stabilized ruthenium nanoparticle catalyst for β-alkylated dimer alcohol formation via Guerbet reaction of primary alcohols
Tatsuki Nagata, Kanji Okada, Ryota Kondo, Takashi Toyao, Ken-ichi Shimizu, Takeyuki Suzuki and Yasushi Obora
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 16599-16603

Metal- and base-free tandem sulfonylation/cyclization of 1,5-dienes with aryldiazonium salts via the insertion of sulfur dioxide
Xiaohong Wang, Fengzhi You, Baojian Xiong, Lei Chen, Xuemei Zhang and Zhong Lian
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 16745-16750

Pyridine appended 2-hydrazinylthiazole derivatives: design, synthesis, in vitro and in silico antimycobacterial studies
Ramkishore Matsa, Parameshwar Makam, Guneswar Sethi, Ahammed Ameen Thottasseri, Aswani Raj Kizhakkandiyil, Krishna Ramadas, Vignesh Mariappan, Agieshkumar Balakrishna Pillai and Tharanikkarasu Kannan
RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 18333-18346

RSC Advances Royal Society of Chemistry

Submit to RSC Advances today! 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.

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RSC Advances Popular Advances – an interview with Dr Nicholle Bell

22 Jun 2022

By Claire Mitchell, Assistant Editor.

We are very pleased to introduce Dr Nicholle Bell, the corresponding author of the RSC Advances article 19F-centred NMR analysis of mono-fluorinated compounds. This paper became one of the newest additions to our Popular Advances collection. The Popular Advances Collection is a selection of well received RSC Advances articles, handpicked by our reviewers and handling editors.

Nicholle told us more about the work that went into this article and what she hopes to achieve in the future. You can find out more about the authors and their article below. If you would like to explore more of our Popular Advances, please find the full online collection here.

Meet the Author:

Nicholle Bell is an environmental chemist whose research involves the design and application of state-of-the-art analytical methods for unravelling the composition of complex mixtures. She completed her PhD in 2015 where she designed 3D and 4D NMR experiments for identification of molecules within Earth’s most complex mixture: soil organic matter. In 2016, she was awarded a 3 year NERC Soil Security Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh to develop new NMR and FT-ICR-MS methods for examination of the organic matter within peat soils. In 2017, she was award the RSC Joseph Black Medal for “innovative developments in the teaching and practice of spectroscopy”. She is currently a NERC Independent Research Fellow combining molecular, microbial and enzymatic methods to examine the relationships between the drivers of carbon cycling in peatlands across the UK, Canada and Sweden.

Could you briefly explain the focus of your article to the non-specialist (in one or two sentences only) and why it is of current interest?

¹⁹F-centred Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a spectroscopic methodology that allows efficient structure elucidation of fluorine-containing molecules in complex mixtures.

How big an impact could your results potentially have?

The analysis of fluorinated molecules is required in many scientific fields. Incorporation of ¹⁹F into small organic molecules improves their biological properties making them an important target for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Organic chemists chose to tag their molecules with ¹⁹F to allow them to study reaction mechanisms and kinetics. A similar approach can be used to characterise unknown molecules in complex environmental mixtures. To support all these efforts, efficient analytical methodology for the characterisation of fluorinated molecules, either as pure species or in mixtures, is required and this is where our methodology can help.

Could you explain the motivation behind this study?

I am an environmental chemist fascinated by the complexity of environmental mixtures. Part of my research portfolio is the development of methodologies that will enable structure elucidation of small molecules found in our soils and waters. We are surrounded by these mixtures and yet do not understand their composition and hence find it difficult to explain their properties and functions. In addition, many manmade fluorinated molecules have become part of our modern life with approximately 25% and 50% of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, respectively, containing fluorine. It is satisfying to realise that our methodology can be used in a number of research fields.

In your opinion, what are the key design considerations for your study?

NMR is one of the most powerful analytical techniques for structure determination of molecules. It is an indirect method, which gathers and interprets a plethora of molecular parameters to arrive at the proposed structure, a process akin to putting together pieces of a puzzle. Our ¹⁹F-centred NMR approach utilises the substantial sensitivity of ¹⁹F and it’s far reaching couplings with ¹H and ¹³C to obtain ¹H, ¹³C and ¹⁹F chemical shifts, values of J_HF, J_HH, and J_FC coupling constants and ¹³C induced ¹⁹F isotopic shifts. The obtained data constitute a rich source of information that enables structure elucidation of fluorinated structures. An important advantage of ¹⁹F over other nuclei is the lack of background signals due to the absence of fluorinated endogenous compounds, making it possible to apply our methodology to complex mixtures without the need to separate individual compounds.

Which part of the work towards this paper proved to be most challenging?

Today’s NMR spectroscopy has at its disposal in impressive set of building blocks, which when put together produce, new, ever more sensitive and efficient NMR experiments. A lot of time is spent putting these bocks together and refining them in order to produce generally applicable, state of the art NMR experiments. This could be a challenge, but also great fun.

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

The potential of our approach to identify molecules found in environment. To understand their transformations and roles they play in our ecosystems, including their effects on human health or ability to enable carbon storage.

What is the next step? What work is planned?

The focus now is on applying our methodology to study environmental samples. We are testing numerous existing fluorination methodologies to introduce fluorine into complex mixtures of natural organic matter. Once incorporated we are using fluorine as a molecular spy to report on its chemical environment to help aid structure determination of organic compounds.

19F-centred NMR analysis of mono-fluorinated compounds†

Alan J. R. Smith, Richard York, Dušan Uhrín and Nicholle G. A. Bell *

RSC Adv., 2022,12, 10062-10070 DOI: 10.1039/D1RA08046F

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Editors’ collection: Liquid Crystals Science and Technology by Associate Editor Giacomo Saielli

20 Jun 2022

By Claire Mitchell, Assistant Editor.

We are delighted to share with you our latest collection of recently published articles focusing on Liquid Crystals, handpicked by Associate Editor Dr Giacomo Saielli (Italian National Research Council and University of Padova).

Liquid Crystals (LCs) have been discovered serendipitously in 1888 by the botanist Friedrich Reinitzer. Their discovery sparked a great deal of debate during the first half of 1900 concerning their structural and dynamic properties and even their relationship with living organisms. They remained, however, mostly an academic curiosity until the second half of the last century when their possible application as displays became clear.

LC displays now represent a huge share of the display industry and many other applications based on LCs have been proposed and developed. At the same time, the LC science, mostly rooted in chemistry and physics but also touching mathematics, biology and engineering, has progressed significantly with new fields opening, e.g. ionic liquid crystals, polymeric liquid crystals, active matter systems, orienting phases for bio-NMR, LC-based membranes for separation. Moreover, new LC phases have been reported during the last recent decades renewing the scientific discussion on the fundamental properties and phase structure of these fascinating materials.

This themed collection highlights a series of papers published in the last two years concerning basic scientific investigations on LCs, from the synthesis of novel materials to structure-property relationships as well as applications in opto-electronic devices, thus attesting the breadth and vitality of the present research on liquid crystals.

As the world’s largest gold open access chemistry journal, all publications in RSC Advances are free to access. We hope you enjoy reading these articles.

We invite you to submit your research to this collection and give your work the global visibility it deserves.

Submit your research now

Featured articles:

Photo-controllable rotational motion of cholesteric liquid crystalline droplets in a dispersion system
Yota Sakai, Woon Yong Sohn and Kenji Katayama
RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 21191-21197. DOI: 10.1039/D0RA03465G

The role of intermolecular interactions in stabilizing the structure of the nematic twist-bend phase
Katarzyna Merkel, Barbara Loska, Chris Welch, Georg H. Mehl and Antoni Kocot
RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 2917-2925 DOI: 10.1039/D0RA10481G

Textile materials inspired by structural colour in nature
Celina Jones, Franz J. Wortmann, Helen F. Gleeson and Stephen G. Yeates
RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 24362-24367 DOI: 10.1039/D0RA01326A

Read the full collection here

Meet the Editor

Dr. Giacomo Saielli is currently Senior Researcher at the CNR Institute on Membrane Technology, Padova Unit, and contract Professor of Chemistry at the University of Padova. After obtaining his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Padova in 1999, he spent two years as a post-doc at the University of Southampton, UK. He then received a JSPS short fellowship for a post-doc at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Tsukuba, Japan, in 2003. Moreover, he has been a visiting researcher at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla CA (2010); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley CA (2013); and PIFI visiting scientist (President’s International Fellowship Initiative – Chinese Academy of Science) at the CAS Institute of Theoretical Physics in Beijing, in 2017. His research is mainly focussed on computational studies of ionic liquids, liquid crystals and computational spectroscopy.

About RSC Advances

As the world’s largest gold open access journal dedicated to the chemical sciences, we are here for everyone who wants to publish quality chemistry research and share it with the world. Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry and led by active researchers, we publish work in all areas of chemistry and our low article processing charges, discounts and waivers make publishing open access achievable and sustainable. Learn more.

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RSC Advances Blog

Welcome to our new Editorial Board members: Surajit Ghosh, Fabienne Dumoulin and Bob Baker

Advancing with Advances- How to publish and not perish (Part 1)

An Interview with Shirley Nakagaki, President of the Brazilian Chemical Society

Introduction to Advancing with Advances: How to publish and not perish?

RSC Advances Popular Advances – an interview with Emanuele Moioli

RSC Advances Outstanding Student Paper Awards 2021

May & June 2022 RSC Advances Review Articles

May & June 2022 RSC Advances Popular Advances Articles

RSC Advances Popular Advances – an interview with Dr Nicholle Bell

Editors’ collection: Liquid Crystals Science and Technology by Associate Editor Giacomo Saielli

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