After developing a method based on NMR experiments and computational simulations, a team of researchers from CeRTEV (São Carlos, SP, Brazil) was able to carry out the first observation of the changes that occur in the structure of a glass during relaxation and nucleation, two processes that occur at the nanoscale in all glasses and that impact their properties. The advances are crucial for the development of high-performance glass-ceramics. The work was reported in Acta Materialia. Know more.
Community
Prof. Aldo Craievich (USP) passed away on April 24 at the age of 84. Craievich was one of the founding members of B-MRS and made great contributions to our community. He was a pioneer in glass research in Brazil and one of the protagonists in the history of the National Synchrotron Lab. Also, he dedicated himself to training synchrotron light users and was instrumental in setting up several X-ray characterization laboratories.
Read the tribute to Aldo Craievich written by the B-MRS member Daniel Ugarte (Unicamp), who considers him a friend, mentor and role model. Here.
Access the interview that Craievich gave to the B-MRS Newsletter in 2015. Here.
XXI B-MRS Meeting Maceió (AL), October 1st to 5th, 2023
Plenary lectures. This edition of the event will have 6 plenary lectures, given by distinguished scientists from France, Germany, India, Italy, Portugal and Spain, in addition to the Memorial Lecture “Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro”, with Prof. Gilberto Fernandes de Sá (UFPE), and the Lectureship Award” José Arana Varela”, with Prof. Fernando Lázaro Freire Junior (PUC-Rio). Learn more about the plenary sessions on the website.
Symposia. The event comprises 24 thematic symposia covering design, synthesis, characterization, processing and applications of various materials, from traditional alloys to bio-based polymers. More than 100 researchers from 15 countries organize our symposia. See the list and description of the symposia.
Student awards.Contributions submitted by students and approved for presentation will be eligible for student awards until July 17. Know more.
Registration. Registration is open, with special prices for students and researchers from Brazilian institutions and other Latin American countries. See the values.
Venue. The venue for the event will be the Ruth Cardoso Cultural and Exhibition Center, in the city of Maceió. Know more.
Chairmen.The general coordinators of the event are professors from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL): Prof. Carlos Jacinto da Silva, from the Institute of Physics, and Mario Roberto Meneghetti, from the Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology.
Papers by the community
Researchers from Unicamp and LNLS and collaborators show in this review article that a set of recent research has taken perovskite solar cells closer to commercialization. The advances, many of them carried out in Brazil, are based on in situ and operando experiments carried out with synchrotron light. Access the review, which is on the cover of a very high impact factor journal.
Members
Prof. Edgar Zanotto (UFSCar) received an award from the Brazilian Council of State Research Foundations (CONFAP) for his contributions to converting research into development and well-being of Brazilian populations. He won the fisrt place in the Featured Researcher category of the Exact Sciences area.
Advocacy
– B-MRS sent the second letter to CAPES, this time to the current president, Prof. Mercedes Bustamante, expressing concern about the loss of access to journals of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) on the CAPES Portal. Read the letter.
– The General Coordination of Social Communication of CAPES sent a message to B-MRS in response to the publication of the letter. Look here.
– B-MRS joined dozens of scientific and civil society entities to propose the creation of an annual day of struggle against dictatorship and celebration of democracy. Know more.
Reading tips
– Using computer simulations and tunneling microscopy, scientists studied catalysis processes on the atomic scale and concluded that, contrary to the established assumption, the bonds between metal atoms of catalysts do not remain intact during the reactions they catalyze. This new understanding could help reduce the enormous amounts of energy involved in catalysis processes widely used in industry. (Science)Know more
– A scientific team led by Professor Sir Andre Geim has discovered a new property of graphene: under ambient conditions, the material has the highest magnetoresistance of any system ever studied. (Nature) Know more
Opportunities
– M-ERA . NET Call 2023 for ambitious transnational RTD projects addressing materials research and innovation including materials for batteries and low carbon energy technologies. Deadline for the pre-proposal stage is May16. Learn more.
– The call for nominations for the VinFuture Prize, which distinguishes scientific research and technological innovations that have had a high social impact, is open until May 15th. The prize has special categories for developing countries, innovative women and emerging areas. Learn more.
– ACS Applied Nano Materials is calling for papers for its special issue “Women in Nano”, dedicated to articles by women working in nanomaterials with a focus on applications. The deadline for submission is August 31st. Prof. Monica Cotta, B-MRS President, is among the organizers. Learn more.
– Postdoc in composite metamaterials for aeronautical application at the Federal Institute of Maranhão. Learn more.
Upcoming events
– Escuela Virtual de Caracterización de Materiales de la SMMATER – 3ª edición. Online. February 20th to August 2nd, 2023. Website.
– 49ª International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF). San Diego (USA). May 21 to 26, 2023. Website.
– 41st International Conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet and X-ray Physics (VUVX 2023). Campinas (SP, Brazil). July 3 to 7, 2023. Website.
– IV Brazilian Nanocellulose Summit. Sao Carlos (SP, Brazil). August 9th to 11th, 2023. Website.
– Chip in Rio (International Congress in Microelectronics and Microtechnologies). Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). August 28 to September 1, 2023.Website.
– XXI B-MRS Meeting. Maceio (AL, Brazil). October 1st to 5th, 2023.Website.
– 4th International Brazilian Conference on Tribology (TriboBR). Victoria (ES, Brazil). November 26th to 30th, 2023.Website.
– XLVI Congresso Internacional de Químicos Teóricos de Expressão Latina (Quitel 2023). Montevideo (Uruguay). November 26th to 30th, 2023. Website.
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A team of researchers from CeRTEV (one of the largest academic centers for glass research in the world, located in São Carlos, SP, Brazil) has carried out the first experimental observation of the changes that occur in the structure of a glass during relaxation and nucleation, two processes that occur at the nanometer scale in all glasses and that impact their properties.
It is worth remembering that glasses are amorphous materials: their atoms do not appear in an organized and periodic arrangement. Furthermore, they are out of thermodynamic equilibrium and therefore tend to seek stability. In that search, the structure of the glasses undergoes rearrangements, which tend to either make it more fluid (relaxation), or to form the first crystals (nucleation) to, finally, crystallize.
In addition to occurring spontaneously (at the end of almost infinite human times at room temperature), the relaxation and crystallization of glasses can be greatly accelerated by heating the material, which is the method used to produce glass-ceramics. Much more resistant to impacts than common glasses, glass-ceramics have crystalline regions dispersed in the amorphous matrix. Due to their unique properties, they are used in applications such as bulletproof windows and dental restorations.
Understanding the structural changes of glasses during relaxation and nucleation is an old scientific problem, whose resolution was limited by the absence of adequate instrumentation. Therefore, in order to carry out this study, the CeRTEV researchers needed to develop a method. The challenge was finally overcome using experiments based on the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique combined with computer simulations.
“Our research and the resulting technique offer a valuable tool for monitoring and understanding the relaxation process in many glasses, as well as the early stages of crystal nucleation that occur during heat treatments,” says Henrik Bradtmüller, corresponding author of the article that reports this research in Acta Materialia. “These findings are crucial for the design and production control of technologically advanced glass-ceramics with high performance ”, adds the young German scientist, who has been working as a postdoctoral fellow at UFSCar, with a scholarship of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), since 2020.
The discovery
The joint work of highly specialized scientists was one of the keys to achieving success in this research. In fact, the work team added the broad experience of two senior researchers: Professor Edgar Dutra Zanotto (UFSCar) in the area of nucleation and crystallization in glasses, and Professor Hellmut Eckert (IFSC-USP) in the development and refinement of the new NMR technique. Also fundamental were the contributions of postdoctoral fellow Anuraag Gaddam (IFSC-USP), also a FAPESP fellow, who carried out the computational simulations, and Henrik Bradtmüller, who developed and applied the NMR strategies that made the observations possible.
The authors of the paper. From left: Henrik Bradtmüller, Anuraag Gaddam, Hellmut Eckert and Edgar D. Zanotto.
“Through the use of molecular dynamics simulations, we were able to predict the structural changes that occur during glass relaxation,” says Bradtmüller. “In the present contribution we could observe these changes for the first time through sensitive NMR experiments”, he adds. The NMR technique makes it possible to analyze, on the atomic scale, the structure of solid materials, including amorphous structures.
To carry out the experiments, the team chose lithium disilicate (Li2Si2O5), a glass-ceramic widely used, mainly in dental prostheses. The researchers heated it over periods that varied between 15 minutes and 60 days, at 435 °C, a temperature lower than that of the glass transition of this material, in which the atoms gain mobility and the glass begins to become more fluid, without, however, melting.
The samples taken at different times of heating were analyzed using the developed NMR experiments. The results showed, for the first time, what happens to the structure of lithium disilicate during relaxation and nucleation. “The distribution of the network building blocks of this glass (-Si-O-Si-) stays mostly unchanged”, reports Professor Zanotto, who is director of CeRTEV. “In contrast, the network modifier cations (Li+), which are very mobile within the material at annealing temperatures, continously approach a structural configuration that resembles the crystalline state.” Given enough heating time, explains the professor, the first crystal nuclei appear, followed by many others, until the entire material is crystallized.
From now on, the authors of the work hope that the new methodology will be used to study many other vitreous materials and that this detailed understanding of fundamental phenomena will allow adjusting the properties of glass-ceramics to improve their performance and expand their range of applications.
This research was funded by FAPESP.
Center: State functions Enthalpy (H), Entropy (S), and molar Volume (V) as a function of temperature, highlighting the differences between liquid, crystal and glass. Left and top right: Slices of molecular dynamics “boxes”, highlighting the distribution of Li + ions (orange colored) in the simulated glass. Bottom right: NMR spectra showing the differences between glass as-prepared by melt-quenching, glass after relaxation following annealing for variable times at a temperature 20°C below the glass transition temperature, glass containing crystal nuclei, and fully crystallized glass.
Paper reference:Structural rearrangements during sub-Tg relaxation and nucleation in lithium disilicate glass revealed by a solid-state NMR and MD strategy. Henrik Bradtmüller, Anuraag Gaddam, Hellmut Eckert, Edgar D. Zanotto. Acta Materialia. Volume 240, November 2022, 118318. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2022.118318
B-MRS signed an agreement with IEEE Magnetics Society to promote the exchange and dissemination of technical information, as well as the cooperation between members in the field of magnetic materials and related topics. Together, the two societies are organizing the international conference INTERMAG 2024, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro. Know more.
XXI B-MRS Meeting Maceió (AL), October 1st to 5th, 2023
Submission.The submission of abstracts to our symposia is open until April 17th. Know more.
Symposia. The event comprises 24 thematic symposia covering design, synthesis, characterization, processing and applications of various materials, from traditional alloys to bio-based polymers. More than 100 researchers from Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, UK and USA are organizing our symposia. See the list of symposia and their description.
Student awards.Contributions submitted by students and approved for presentation will be able to apply for student awards until July 17. Know more.
Registrations. Registration is open, with special prices for students and researchers from Brazilian institutions and other Latin American countries. See the values. There are discounts of around 40% for B-MRS members, new or old, who have paid the 2023 annuity.
Venue. The venue for the event will be the Ruth Cardoso Cultural and Exhibition Center, in the city of Maceió, state of Alagoas. Know more.
Chairmen.The general coordinators of the event are professors from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL): Carlos Jacinto da Silva, from the Institute of Physics, and Mario Roberto Meneghetti, from the Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology.
Seeking to imitate nodules that occur naturally in the roots of plants such as soybeans, researchers from UEPG (Parana) developed a biodegradable hydrogel and with it they encapsulated fertilizing bacteria. Placed next to maize seeds, the capsules integrated into the roots and significantly increased plant growth. Go the paper.
Researchers from IFSC-USP (São Paulo state) and collaborators have developed a low-cost biosensor capable of accurately diagnose Covid-19. The main innovation of the device is to use natural membranes extracted from real cells as the virus recognition elements. Go to the paper.
A scientific team from UEM (Parana) innovated in using fibers from the Yucca aloifolia L. plant as reinforcement in polypropylene composites. The result was a material with excellent mechanical properties, promising for applications in the automotive, naval, aerospace and civil construction sectors, among others. Go to the paper.
This work carried out at UFRGS (Rio Grande do Sul) contributes to the development of materials for drug delivery. The paper presents an atypical use of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy: measuring the amount of drug that a material delivers over time, in real time, with high sensitivity and without destroying the sample. Go to the paper.
If you are the author of a high impact article in the Materials field and wish to share it with our community, contact us.
Reading tips
– Using artificial intelligence, scientists design simple-to-synthesize polymers that function like real proteins in biological fluids. The work paves the way for the development of biomaterials. (Nature) Know more.
– A microarchitecture of interconnected nodes fabricated by 3D lithography made a polymer exceptionally strong. Knots allow the material to deform much more without showing damage when it returns to its original shape. (Science Advances) Know more.
Opportunities
– The call for nominations for the VinFuture Prize, which distinguishes scientific research and technological innovations that have had a high social impact, is open until May 15th. The prize has special categories for developing countries, innovative women and emerging areas. Know more.
– ACS Applied Nano Materials is calling for papers for its special issue “Women in Nano”, dedicated to articles by women working in nanomaterials with a focus on applications. The deadline for submission is August 31st. Prof. Monica Cotta, B-MRS President, is among the organizers. Know more.
Representatives of the Brazilian Materials Research Society (B-MRS) and IEEE Magnetics Society met on March 1st to formalize an agreement between the two scientific societies. At the meeting, which was held online, a memorandum of understanding was signed with the aim of promoting the exchange and dissemination of technical information and encouraging the cooperation among the members of the societies. In this way, B-MRS became a sister society of IEEE Magnetics Society.
“We are constantly looking for international partnerships in order to expand opportunities for our materials community”, says Mônica Cotta (UNICAMP), B-MRS President. “The agreement with IEEE Magnetics Society confirms the excellent work carried out by researchers in magnetism and related areas in Brazil, who should benefit from increased cooperation with our new sister society,” she adds.
“Brazil is a global player in magnetic materials, being a producer of special magnetic materials and owner of large reserves of important raw materials, such as iron, silicon, niobium and rare earths”, contextualizes Rubem Sommer (CBPF), B-MRS Scientific Director.
According to him, the recently signed agreement is a natural evolution of the collaborations that have been taking place through events organized by members of both societies, such as the symposia held within the B-MRS annual meetings, among other actions.
“The evolution of these activities resulted in the ongoing partnership between B-MRS and the IEEE Magnetics Society to hold the INTERMAG 2024 conference in Rio de Janeiro from May 5 to 10, 2024”, announces Sommer.
Print of the online meeting with all the participants: Prof. Min-fu Hsie (IEEE MS International Relations Coordinator), Veronica Savignano (B-MRS Communications Manager), Prof. Angela B. Klautau (B-MRS Scientific Director), Prof. Monica Cotta (B-MRS President), Prof. Rubem Sommer (B-MRS Scientific Director), Prof. Atsufumi Hiroata (IEEE MS President), Prof. Masahiro Yamaguchi (IEEE MS Past President), and Prof. Ivan H. Bechtold (B-MRS Director of Administration and Finance).
A team from Unicamp has developed a polymeric film with repellent properties that, upon the addition of water, is transformed into a colloidal dispersion with the same properties. The invention is based on the presence of nanocompartments in the film and opens up possibilities for developing reusable packaging. The work was reported in Advanced Sustainable Systems.Know more.
If you are the author of high-quality scientific work, carried out wholly or mostly in Brazil and published in a journal with a high impact factor, and you want to publicize it in our community, contact us to have your paper considered in the monthly selection of the “Featured paper”: comunicacao@sbpmat.org.br.
Women in science
We spoke with Prof. Monica Cotta (Unicamp), president of B-MRS, about being a woman and a scientist today and 40 years ago. Monica is part of the small group of women who have reached the top of their careers and hold management positions at academia.Read the interview.
Papers from the community
A work carried out mainly in institutions in the state of Amazonas shows the viability of using residues from pineapple production, which are usually burned in the plantation, as catalysts in the production of biodiesel. Access the paper atBioresource Technology.
Members
Prof. Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior (IFSC-USP) assumed the presidency of IUMRS, which brings together materials research societies from all continents. The former president of B-MRS is the first researcher in Latin America to hold this position.
Prof. Carlos A. Figueroa (UCS) joined the Executive Committee of ASED-AVS, division of the American Vacuum Society dedicated to the field of advanced surfaces. In this new role, the B-MRS member proposes to strengthen AVS’s ties with the research community in Latin America.
XXI B-MRS Meeting Maceió (AL), October 1st to 5th, 2023
Submission. Abstract submission within the symposia is open until April 17th. Know more.
Symposia.The event comprises 24 thematic symposia covering design, synthesis, characterization, processing and applications of various materials, from traditional alloys to bio-based polymers. More than 100 researchers from Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, UK and USA are organizing our symposia.See the list of symposia and their discription.
Student awards. Contributions submitted by students and approved for presentation will be able to apply for student awards until July 17.Know more.
Registrations.Registration is open, with special prices for students and researchers from Brazilian institutions and other Latin American countries. See the values.
Venue. The venue for the event will be the Ruth Cardoso Cultural and Exhibition Center, in the city of Maceió. Know more.
Chairmen.The general coordinators of the event are professors from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) and CNPq research productivity fellows: Carlos Jacinto da Silva, from the Institute of Physics, and Mario Roberto Meneghetti, from the Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology.
– Call for nominations for the VinFuture Prize is open by May 15. The prize distinguish high-social impact research and innovation and has special categories for developing countries, innovative women and emerging fields. Know more.
– The Extreme Methods of Analysis (EMA) beamline of Brazilian Synchrotron Light Source has an immediate open position (permanent) for outstanding researcher in Synchrotron techniques under extreme thermodynamical conditions.Learn more.
Upcoming events
– Escuela Virtual de Caracterización de Materiales de la SMMATER – 3ª edición. Online. February 20th to August 2nd, 2023. Website.
– Curso Introdução ao Método Rietveld. Sobral (CE, Brazil). March 6th to 8th, 2023. Website.
– II Encuentro de Investigadores en Ciencia de Materiales. Montevidéu (Uruguai). April 20 and 21, 2023. Website.
– 49ª International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF). San Diego (USA). May 21 to 26, 2023. Website.
– 41st International Conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet and X-ray Physics (VUVX 2023). Campinas (SP, Brazil). July 3 to 7, 2023. Website.
– IV Brazilian Nanocellulose Summit. São Carlos (SP, Brazil). August 9th to 11th, 2023. Website.
– XXI B-MRS Meeting. Maceió (AL, Brazil). October 1st to 5th, 2023. Website.
– 4th International Brazilian Conference on Tribology (TriboBR). Vitoria (ES, Brazil). November 26th to 30th, 2023. Website.
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