Interview with Prof. Pulickel Ajayan (Rice University).

Posted on Thursday 31 de August de 2017

Despite all the knowledge on nanotechnology generated over the last few decades, applying nanomaterials to commercial products can still be a difficult task. At the XVI B-MRS Meeting, Professor Pulickel Ajayan, one of the world’s references in nanomaterials and nanostructures, will shed light on this problem. In the plenary lecture he will address in Gramado on the morning of September 14, Ajayan will discuss some challenges of the application of nanomaterials (particularly those of two dimensions) in systems and devices. He will address issues related to the synthesis, characterization and modification of these materials.

Ajayan and his collaborators have developed nanomaterials with diverse functionalities, applicable to fileds such as energy storage and conversion, catalysis, low consumption electronics, nanomedicine or environment care. Among his most famous contributions, are carbon nanotubes filled with molten material acting as nanowire moulds (1993); nanobrushes made of carbon nanotubes, highlighted by Guinness World Records as the smallest ones (2005); the paper battery, made of cellulose and nanotubes (2007); the ultra-dark nanotube carpet, which reflects only 0.045% of light (2008), and a reusable sponge of nanotubes capable of absorbing oil dispersed in water (2012).

Professor and director of the Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering at Rice University (USA), Ajayan has exceptional publication metrics: a h index of 144 and more than 95,000 citations according to Google Scholar.

Pulickel Madhavapanicker Ajayan was born in 1962 in India, in a small town in the southern state of Kerala. He attended primary school there and then went to the state capital, to a high school that aroused his enthusiasm for learning, his curiosity, and his interest in science.

In 1985, Ajayan graduated in Metallurgical Engineering at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), located in northeastern India and then went on to do a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University (USA). At that moment, he began to penetrate nanotechnology. In 1989, he defended his PhD thesis about very small gold particles that, some years later, would begin to be called “nanoparticles”.

In 1990, he moved to Japan to pursue a postdoctoral stage at the Fundamental Research Laboratory of the NEC Corporation, where he remained until 1993 in the group that was responsible for a series of seminal studies on carbon nanotubes – including the “discovery” of these nanomaterials, attributed to Sumio Iijima in 1991. During his postdoc, Ajayan obtained important results on the synthesis of nanotubes in large scale and on the filling of nanotubes with other materials.

From Japan, he went to France where he worked as a researcher at the Solid Physics Laboratory of the Université Paris-Sud for two years. Then he went to Germany, where he worked for a year and a half at the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung. In 1997, he moved to the United States to become an assistant professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), the nation’s oldest university of technological research, located in the state of New York. At RPI, he was the Henri Burlage chair Professor in Engineering and worked in the nanotechnology research group.

In 2007, he left RPI and joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Rice University to be the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson professor of Engineering. In 2014, he also held the founding chair of the Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering.

Currently, in addition to teaching and leading a research group of about 40 members at Rice University, Ajayan travels a lot, whether to share his knowledge on nanotechnology (he has delivered more than 350 invited lectures and has held visiting professor positions at universities around the world), or to take care of his scientific collaborations. In addition, Ajayan has acted on the boards of several journals, startups and international conferences of the materials and nanotechnology field.

The scientist has received important awards from a number of institutions including the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), Materials Research Society (USA), Microscopic Society of America (USA). He also received distinctions of numerous universities around the world, including the doctorate honoris causa by the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). He is an elected member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the National Academies of Sciences of India and Mexico, among other scientific societies.

Here follows an interview with the scientist.

B-MRS newsletter: – We would like you to choose some of your contributions to nanotechnology, describe them briefly, and share the paper reference, if possible. Please choose:

– The one(s) you consider to have caused or will cause more social impact.

Pulickel Ajayan: – Several of our discoveries have commercial and social impact. In the past two decades some of the research highlights from our lab have been carbon nanotube arrays as extreme light absorbers (for thermo-photovoltaics), nanotube arrays as gecko-tapes, high conductivity carbon nanotube fibers, graphene oxide membranes for water filtration, carbon nanomaterials for energy storage, light weight polymer nanocomposites, development of two-dimensional materials for electronics and sensors, carbon based quantum dots as catalysis for example CO2 reduction etc.

– The one(s) that gave you more personal satisfaction.

Pulickel Ajayan: – One of the most exciting work was related to the conversion of carbon onions into diamond nanoparticles using electron irradiation. This work was done in collaboration with Prof. Florian Banhart when I was visiting as a post-doc at the Max Planck Institute for Metallforschung in Stuttgart in the mid-90’s. This work published in Nature magazine showed direct observation of graphite to diamond phase transition without application of any external pressure.

B-MRS newsletter: – Have any of your scientific/ technological contributions been transferred to a commercial product? If so, has this transfer occurred through patent licensing, start-up …?

Pulickel Ajayan: – Two start-up companies (Paper Battery Co. and Big Delta Systems) have come out of our work; both engage in unconventional energy storage technologies.

B-MRS newsletter – Leave an invitation to your plenary talk for our readers.

Pulickel Ajayan: – Nanotechnology is a paradigm changing approach on how we will be building materials of the future. It is at the core of bottom-up manufacturing and will impact several areas of future technologies. Our work in the past two decades have focused on creating nano-engineered materials with various types of nanoscale building blocks.

More information

On XVI B-MRS Meeting website, click on the photo of Pulickel Ajayan and see his mini CV and the abstract of his plenary lecture: http://sbpmat.org.br/16controter/home/

Interview with Prof. Frédéric Guittard (Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, France).

Posted on Thursday 31 de August de 2017

Besides repelling water, superhydrophobic materials can be useful in a myriad of applications. Anti-ice, anti-corrosion and anti-bacterial systems, oil/water separation, water purification and desalination, and drug delivery are just a few examples. At the XVI B-MRS Meeting, this wide range of possibilities will be presented in a plenary lecture by Professor Frédéric Guittard.

Together with his research group at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis (France), Guittard gets inspiration from nature to create hydrophobic and oleophobic surfaces based on conductive polymers and other materials. In these topics, the group has dozens of patents and articles (seven of them, highlighted in the covers of journals of Chemistry, Polymers and Materials since 2014), and is among the few most cited groups in the world.

Frédéric Guittard obtained his doctoral degree in Organic Chemistry in 1994 from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, and remained in the institution as a postdoc for about a year. Between 1995 and 1996, he carried out postdoctoral internships at institutions in the cities of Padua (Italy), Preston (United Kingdom) and Prague (Czech Republic). From 1996 to 1997, he worked in the pharmaceutical industry in the Principality of Monaco.

In 1997, he returned to his alma mater, the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, as an associate professor, becoming a full professor in 2002. From 2004 to 2010, he was the director of the university’s Chemistry Department. Concerning laboratory leadership, Guittard coordinated the Laboratory of Chemistry of Organic and Metallic Materials and, since 2017, leads a new laboratory, the N.I.C.E. ®, whose name refers not only to its location in the city of Nice, but also to the acronym of “Nature Inspires Creativity Engineers”. In addition, Guittard created, and already directs, a professional master’s degree program in Materials and Management at the University of Nice.

In 2012, 2014 and 2016, Guittard was the chairman of the first editions of the international conference on materials inspired by nature, also identified with the trademark N.I.C.E.

Currently, Guittard is a visiting professor at University of California, Riverside (USA).

His scientific production, which has more than 5,200 citations, includes books, more than 230 articles and 35 patents.

Here follows an interview with the scientist

B-MRS Newsletter: – Your research has a biomimetic approach. In what elements of Nature do you take inspiration to develop your hydro and oleophobic materials?

Frédéric Guittard: – From an artichoke. My kids wanted me to grow an artichoke: when I watered it, surprisingly I rediscovered the Lotus effect. The next steps were to adapt, to adopt, to integrate this secret from Nature into technologies or biotechnologies.

B-MRS Newsletter: – In your opinion, what are your main scientific or technological contributions in the field of hydrophobic and oleophobic materials? Please describe them briefly, and share the paper reference, if possible.

Frédéric Guittard: – There are some interesting applications for superhydrophobic or superoleophobic materials. The main applications concern the anti-adhesion (like anti-graffiti, anti-icing, anti-fingerprints …) or anti-bioadhesion (like anti-fouling or for example to remove bacteria from surfaces in hospitals). The following publications will give more details:

– Bioinspired Superhydrophobic Surfaces: Advances and Applications with Metallic and Inorganic Materials, CRC Press, Francis & Taylor Group, 300 pages, 2017 (F. Guittard, T. Darmanin)

– Superhydrophobic and Superoleophobic Properties in Nature, Materials Today, 2015, 18, 273-285 (T. Darmanin, F. Guittard)

– Recent advances in the potential applications of bioinspired superhydrophobic materials, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2014, 2, 16319-16359 (T. Darmanin, F. Guittard)

B-MRS Newsletter: – Your laboratory has an extensive list of industrial partners. Is university-to-industry knowledge transfer common in your laboratory? If so, in what way does it happen? Via patent licensing, spin-offs, joint projects?

Frédéric Guittard: – The first point is to understand that Industries and Universities are not competitors but can form a chain of value. In this way, the industries have to innovate in order to improve or to create the service. The Universities can help the industries to show amazing solutions with a proof of concept. Even if the cost is important to take into account, the key point at 80% for success is the good human relationship. More often, the solution is near us and the effort is weak! We have to see and to observe in order to find the key parameter and to ask the question where is the best in class from all the phenomena in the world (not only in the same field). It is like the benchmarking approaches.

Patent, licensing, spin-offs or joint projects can be used according to the origin of the idea and its realization.

More information

On XVI B-MRS Meeting website, click on the photo of Frédéric Guittard and see his mini CV and the abstract of his plenary lecture: http://sbpmat.org.br/16controter/home/

Interview with Prof. Kirk Schanze (UTSA, USA), editor-in-chief of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Posted on Wednesday 30 de August de 2017

In the research group of Professor Kirk Schanze, conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs) have been the subject of both fundamental studies and applications. The group has already explore CPEs as fluorescent sensors, in solar cells and as biocidal materials.

On September 13, in Gramado, Kirk Schanze, who is a Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and editor-in-chief of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, will take some time out of his busy schedule to deliver a plenary lecture on CPEs in the XVI B-MRS Meeting.

Schanze graduated in Chemistry from Florida State University in 1979. Four years later, he earned his Ph.D., also in Chemistry, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Soon after, he was appointed a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1986, he joined the University of Florida (UF) as a professor of the Department of Chemistry. There, he chaired the Division of Organic Chemistry, held the Prominski Chair of Chemistry, and founded the Schanze Group, which today continues its research activities at UTSA. In 2016, Schanze left UF to hold the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry at UTSA.

Between 2000 and 2008, Schanze served as senior editor of the prestigious journal Langmuir. Shortly thereafter, he became the first editor-in-chief of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, which had just been released.

Prof. Schanze has authored about 300 papers and 20 patents. According to Google Scholar, his scientific production has more than 16,000 citations and his h index is 71. He is fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS). He was a visiting professor at the Harbin Institute of Technology (China) and the Tokyo Metropolitan University (Japan) in 2011, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Cachan (France) in 2008 and at the Chemical Research Promotion Center (Taiwan) in 2007. He has received distinctions from the American Chemical Society, National Science Foundation, University of Florida, Japan Society for Promotion of Science, and Japanese Photochemical Association, among other entities.

Here follows an interview with the scientist.

B-MRS newsletter: – In your opinion, what are your main scientific and/ or technological contributions to the field of conjugated polyelectrolytes? Describe them briefly and feel free to share a few references of your papers, patents or books.

Kirk Schanze: – We were among the first groups to study conjugated polyelectrolytes, which are water soluble conjugated polymers. Following are some of the key contributions from our group to this field:

a) Our lab was the first to report the synthesis of a water soluble, fluorescent poly(phenylene ethynylene) sulfonate (PPE-SO3) and describe the application to fluorescence sensing of ions in water at ultralow concentration.[1]

b) We were the first to report the use of a fluorescent conjugated polyelectrolyte as a sensor for enzyme activity, which is an important biosensing application.[2]

c) Our lab has developed the applications of cationic conjugated polyelectrolytes to sensing phosphatase enzyme activity. These enzymes are important in a number of biologically significant processes. [3,4]

d) Working in collaboration with Prof. David Whitten of the University of New Mexico, we have developed cationic conjugated polyelectrolytes as a novel class of antibacterial agents.[5,6]

References:

[1] C. Tan, M. R. Pinto and K. S. Schanze, “Photophysics, Aggregation and Amplified Quenching of a Water-Soluble poly(Phenylene ethynylene)”, Chem. Commun. 2002, 446-447, 10.1039/B109630C.

[2] M. R. Pinto and K. S. Schanze, “Amplified Fluorescence Sensing of Protease Activity with Conjugated Polyelectrolytes”, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 2004, 101, 7505, 10.1073/pnas.0402280101.

[3] Zhao, X.; Liu, Y.; Schanze, K. S., “A Conjugated Polyelectrolyte Based Fluorescence Sensor for Pyrophosphate”, Chem. Commun. 2007, 2914-2916, 10.1039/b706629e.

[4] Zhao, X. Y.; Schanze, K. S., “Fluorescent Ratiometric Sensing of Pyrophosphate via Induced Aggregation of a Conjugated Polyelectrolyte”, Chem. Commun. 2010, 46, 6075-6077, 10.1039/c0cc01332c.

[5] Ji, E.; Corbitt, T. S.; Parthasarathy, A.; Schanze, K. S.; Whitten, D. G., “Light and Dark-Activated Biocidal Activity of Conjugated Polyelectrolytes”, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2011, 3, 2820-2829, 10.1021/am200644g.

[6] 299. Huang, Y.; Pappas, H. C.; Zhang, L.; Wang, S.; Cai, R.; Tan, W.; Wang, S.; Whitten, D. G.; Schanze, K. S., “Selective Imaging and Inactivation of Bacteria over Mammalian Cells by Imidazolium Substituted Polythiophene”, Chem. Mater. 2017, 2017, 29, 6389–6395, 10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b01796.

B-MRS Newsletter: – You have been the Editor-in-Chief of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces since its release, haven´t you? In less than 10 years, the journal hit an impact factor of 7,504. To what factors do you attribute this good result?

Kirk Schanze: – ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (AMI) publishes papers that come from a currently very active area of materials research, specifically applied materials/interfaces. There is a large community of scientists and engineers around the globe who are working in this field. AMI has a global community of editors and editorial board members who represent their regions. Indeed, the newest editor who has joined our editorial board is Prof. Osvaldo Oliveira Jr. of the University of Sao Paulo!

B-MRS Newsletter: – We often see papers from the Brazilian Materials Community at ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Could you share with our readers some numbers about the participation of Brazilian authors in the journal?

Kirk Schanze: – ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces has published more than 100 papers with authors or co-authors from Brazil. Many of these papers have been highly cited in the field of materials science. Examples of highly cited papers are:

K. Poznyak†, J. Tedim†, L. M. Rodrigues†‡, A. N. Salak†, M. L. Zheludkevich*†, L. F. P. Dick‡ and M. G. S. Ferreira†§ Novel Inorganic Host Layered Double Hydroxides Intercalated with Guest Organic Inhibitors for Anticorrosion Applications, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2009, 1 (10), pp 2353–2362, DOI: 10.1021/am900495r (co-author from Rio Grande do Sul Federal University in Porto Alegre)
Heberton Wender*†, Adriano F. Feil†, Leonardo B. Diaz†, Camila S. Ribeiro‡, Guilherme J. Machado†, Pedro Migowski§, Daniel E. Weibel‡, Jairton Dupont§, and Sérgio R. Teixeira*† Self-Organized TiO2 Nanotube Arrays: Synthesis by Anodization in an Ionic Liquid and Assessment of Photocatalytic Properties, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2011, 3 (4), pp 1359–1365, DOI: 10.1021/am200156d

B-MRS Newsletter: – Please, leave an invitation to your plenary talk.

Kirk Schanze: – Everyone is invited to attend my talk which will highlight our work of conjugated polyelectrolyte as applied in the field of energy- and bio- materials chemistry.

More information

On XVI B-MRS Meeting website, click on the photo of Kirk Schanze and see his mini CV and the abstract of his plenary lecture: http://sbpmat.org.br/16controter/home/

Interview with Kenneth E. Gonsalves (Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India).

Posted on Wednesday 23 de August de 2017

In the race to develop ever smaller and better performing chips, several technological limitations need to be overcome. Today, the bottlenecks to continue this trend lie mainly in techniques for manufacturing electronic circuits of less than 10 nanometers (nm). Among the techniques being improved to manufacture the next generation of chips, one of the most promising is extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). This technology takes advantage of the very short wavelength of extreme ultraviolet radiation to pattern nanoscale circuits on the chip with the intermediation of the so-called “resists” – thin layers of radiation sensitive material that cover the chip substrate during nanofabrication.

At the XVI B-MRS Meeting, a plenary lecture will discuss an important contribution that the materials field can make to the next generation of chips: the development of suitable resists for the fabrication of electronic circuits of less than 10 nm through EUVL.

The subject will be presented by Kenneth E. Gonsalves, Distinguished Professor of the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi (IIT Mandi), a teaching and research institution created in 2009, where Gonsalves arrived in 2012 as a visiting professor.

Gonsalves obtained his BS in Chemistry from the University of Delhi (India) followed by an MS also in Chemistry from Boston College (USA) and a PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (USA) with a doctoral thesis on polymer synthesis. Then he performed a postdoctoral specialization on polymer ceramics at MIT (USA). From 2001 to 2014, Gonsalves was the Celanese Acetate Distinguished Professor of Polymer Materials at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (USA).

Together with his research group at IIT and his collaborators from the United States, India, Brazil, Taiwan and Europe, Gonsalves carries out research and development on resists for advanced nanofabrication techniques, with support of major companies in the electronics segment, and on polymer scaffolds for tissue engineering.

Here follows a brief interview with the researcher.

B-MRS newsletter: – Tell us a little bit about your main scientific/ technological contributions up to the moment.

Kenneth Gonsalves: – My research has centered on polymers with an emphasis on synthesis of novel materials. For the last 20 years I have focused on resist technology for IC (integrated circuit) fab. This is a fascinating area as it has significant technological applications in the development of integrated circuits, solid state devices. In addition it can also be used successfully for cell and tissue engineering of scaffolds for biotechnologies.

B-MRS newsletter: – About the resists you are working on, what skills and expertise are needed to develop them, in your opinion? When this next generation of chips is expected to be available?

Kenneth Gonsalves: – Resist R&D is multifaceted and extremely complex. It requires extensive collaborations between chemists with organic, inorganic and polymer backgrounds. In addition, interaction with physicists and electrical/electronic engineers is essential. The next generation of chips at the 14 nm node are currently available. Sub 7 nm node technology is expected by 2018 onwards.

B-MRS newsletter: – Describe in the simplest and briefest possible way the process of EUVL, without forgetting to mention the role of resists.

Kenneth Gonsalves: – The EUV photons are generated by a plasma or synchrotron source operating at a wavelength of 13.5 nm. Through a series of special mirrors and a mask, the predesigned template for the IC fab is projected onto photosensitive materials such as polymers as well as inorganics. This is all conducted in vacuum, a challenge for the IC fab industry as it is a drastic change from current photolithography fab, which functions under ambient conditions. The extremely short EUV wavelength is a prerequisite for patterning features at the sub 20 nm scale. The challenges for resists that can meet the sub 7 nm node requirements are enormous. A new paradigm is paramount – hybrid resists, that are partially inorganic may provide solutions to patterning at these scales. Inorganic hardmasks are another alternative. The sensitivity of these photoresists has to be enhanced drastically in order to meet the mass volume production of chips. There are several other critical parameters that have to be met for a successful resist system. Again, this requires multidisciplinary, multi institutional, industry collaboration on a global scale.

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More information

On XVI B-MRS Meeting website, click on the photo of Kenneth Gonsalves and see his mini CV and the abstract of his plenary lecture: http://sbpmat.org.br/16encontro/home/

(Português) Livro sobre materiais funcionais editado por pesquisadores do Brasil é lançado pela editora Springer.

Posted on Monday 7 de August de 2017

Sorry, this entry is only available in Brazilian Portuguese.

(Português) Nota Pública da SBPMat.

Posted on Friday 4 de August de 2017

Sorry, this entry is only available in Brazilian Portuguese.

B-MRS newsletter. Year 4, issue 7.

Posted on Tuesday 1 de August de 2017

The newsletter of the Brazilian Materials Research Society News update from Brazil for the Materials community

English edition. Year 4, issue 7.

XVI B-MRS Meeting (Gramado, Brazil, September 10-14)

Program. The preliminary program is online, see here.

Registration – discounts. Registration is open. All categories have discounts until August 31st. See here the different values for B-MRS members (you can become a member during registration) and for non-members. Attention: The registration fee of the event + B-MRS membership fee is less than the registration fee of the event for non-members.

Student Awards. Contributions of undergraduate or graduate students that are accepted for presentation at the event, may compete for awards from B-MRS and from the American Chemical Society (ACS) publisher. Up to 46 works will be awarded. The top 6 (3 posters and 3 oral) will receive cash prizes. To participate in the selection the author must submit by August 14 an extended abstract supplemented to the conventional abstract. Learn more about student awards, here.

Workshops. On Sunday, September 10, those enrolled in the event will be able to attend, at no extra cost, the tutorial “Young’s Researchers School: How to Produce and Publish High Impact Papers“, which will be taught by Valtencir Zucolotto, Professor of IFSC-USP, and by Dr. Christiane Barranguet, Publishing Director for Materials Science at Elsevier. Additional information and registration, here.

Hosting, transportation and tourism. For hotel options, flight reservations, shuttle service, touristic attractions tours, shows etc, see here.

Plenary lectures. Seven internationally renowned scientists will speak about cutting edge research on subjects such as materials for biomedical and environmental applications; biomimetic surfaces; heterogeneous catalysis; materials and technologies for miniaturized electronic circuits; piezoelectric films and their energy, optics and electronics applications. Learn more by clicking on the speakers’ photos, here.

Memorial lecture. At the opening of the event, SBPMat will pay homage to Professor João Alziro H. da Jornada, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), who will deliver the traditional Memorial Lecture “Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro”. See here our interview with Prof. Jornada.

Venue. The FAURGS event center is in the center of Gramado, within walking distance of restaurants, shops, tourist attraction spots and hotels.

City of the event. Gramado is a charming tourist town, with a wide and qualified chain of hotels, gastronomic restaurants and shops. This attractive city is also the starting point for a series of sightseeing highlights that explores the area’s natural florid beauty, its history marked by German and Italian immigration, and the theme parks around the city.

Organization. Meet the organizing committee. Here.

Exhibitors. 23 companies have already confirmed their participation in the industrial exhibition. Contact for sponsoring and exhibition issues: Alexandre, comercial@sbpmat.org.br.

Fapesp collective support. The request was approved. The foundation will finance stipends and transportation of those researchers from São Paulo institutions that participated in the request.
Learn more here.

B-MRS news

B-MRS was present at the 69th annual meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, represented by Professor Glaura Goulart Silva (UFMG), scientific director of our society. Learn more about Goulart Silva’s impression of the event (“an area of resistance to the dismantling of science and technology in Brazil”) and her account on the round table on carbon nanostructures, in which she participated as a panelist. See here.

Featured paper

In a study carried out at the Brazilian Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro, researchers developed a mortar reinforced with multilayer graphene nanoflakes, with resistance almost 150% higher than that of traditional mortar. The material may be easily prepared by civil construction professionals by adding graphene powder to conventional mortar. The scientific team also studied the mechanisms that provide exceptional resistance to this new material. The research was reported in an Elsevier journal dedicated to research in construction materials.
See our news story.

Interviews with speakers of the XVI B-MRS Meeting

We interviewed Professor Susan Trolier-McKinstry, who is the current president of the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the Steward S. Flaschen Professor of Ceramic Science and Engineering at Penn State (USA). Trolier-McKinstry is also a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the Nanofabrication facility at that university. The scientist will deliver a plenary lecture in Gramado, on September 12, on piezoelectric films for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Based on piezoelectric materials, Trolier-McKinstry and her group have developed MEMS – microscopic machines capable of capturing and processing environmental information, and with this data, carrying out operations involving movement – with applications in the energy and health areas, among others. In the interview, she spoke about science and about the current challenges of materials research societies. See the interview.

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We also interviewed Alexander Yarin, Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (USA). In his plenary lecture in Gramado, on September 11, he will talk about the nanofibers he produces in his laboratory from agro-waste materials, using a process based on the interaction between a jet of polymer solution and a jet of air. These biopolymer nanofibers can be used in health and environmental areas, for example. Find out more about Professor Yarin’s main contributions and about the themes he will address at the XVI SBPMat Meeting.
See the interview.

Reading tips

Team led by scientists from Brazil compressed two sheets of graphene and after analyzing the structure by Raman, they reported on the production of a two-dimensional diamond, the “diamondene” (based on paper from Nature Communications). Here.
What is glass? An article from UFSCar (Brazil) and Corning (USA) redefines vitreous materials in a paper highlighted by Elsevier´s Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids. Here.
Scientists discover how the morphology of the wings of beetles generates the most radiant white with the least use of material (based on paper from Advanced Materials). Here.
New journal. Open access journal of Nature Partner Journals (npg) dedicated to flexible electronics, from fundamentals to applications, will launch its first issue in late September. Here.

Events

XXXVIII Congresso Brasileiro de Aplicações de Vácuo na Indústria e na Ciência (CBRAVIC) + III Workshop de Tratamento e Modificação de Superfícies (WTMS)
. São José dos Campos (Brazil). August 21 – 25, 2017.Site.
IUMRS-ICAM 2017. Kyoto (Japan). August 27 – Setember 1, 2017. Site.
International Conference on Luminescence (ICL-2017). João Pessoa (Brazil). August 27 – September 1, 2017.
Site.
23a Reunião da Associação Brasileira de Cristalografia. Vitória, ES (Brazil). September 5 – 9, 2017. Site.
1ª Escola de Altas Pressões. Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil). September 9-10, 2017. Site.
XVI Encontro da SBPMat/ XVI B-MRS Meeting. Gramado, RS (Brazil). September 10 – 14, 2017. Site.
18th International Conference on Internal Friction and Mechanical Spectroscopy (ICIFMS-18). Foz do Iguaçu, PR (Brazil). September 12 – 15 2017. Site.
2ª Conferência Nacional em Materiais Celulares (MatCel’2017) + Conferência Internacional em Dinâmica de Materiais Celulares (DynMatCel’2017). Aveiro (Portugal). September 25 – 27, 2017.
Site.
1st Pan American Congress of Nanotechnology. Fundamentals and Applications to Shape the Future. Guarujá, SP (Brazil). November 7 – 30 2017. Site.

Submit your suggestion for any section of our newsletter: comunicacao@sbpmat.org.br

New journal: npj Flexible Electronics.

Posted on Monday 31 de July de 2017

Publishing high-quality papers related to flexible electronic systems, including plastic electronics and emerging materials, new device design and fabrication technologies and applications, npj Flexible Electronics is a new online-only, open access journal.

npj Flexible Electronics is part of the Nature Partner Journals series, launched by Springer Nature as part of the Nature Research portfolio of journals, and published in partnership with Nanjing Tech University. The journal is led by Editors-in-Chief Professor Donal Bradley (University of Oxford, United Kingdom) and Professor Huang Wei (Nanjing Tech University, China).

npj Flexible Electronics supports fundamental studies that improve understanding of the science relevant for flexible, stretchable and conformable devices, and research that aims to achieve new technologies that might lead to low-cost flexible devices with advanced functionality.

Visit the journal website to find out more, including the benefits of submitting your next manuscript and the option to sign up for free article e-alerts.

B-MRS at the annual meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC).

Posted on Monday 31 de July de 2017

From the left, Marcos Pimenta, Glaura Goulart Silva (scientific director of SBPMat) and Aldo Zarbin in the panel on carbon nanostructures at the 60th Annual SBPC Meeting.

The Brazilian Materials Research Society (B-MRS) was present at the 69th Annual Meeting of the SBPC (Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science), represented by one of its board members, Professor Glaura Goulart Silva (UFMG). A free event and open to society, the annual SBPC meeting has been held since 1948 in public universities in different Brazilian states. This year, the meeting was held at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), in Belo Horizonte (state of Minas Gerais), from July 16 to 22, with the central theme “Innovation –Diversity – Transformations.”

“The 69th Annual SBPC Meeting was an area of resistance to the dismantling of science and technology in Brazil,” declared B-MRS scientific director, Goulart Silva. “The Brazilian community actively involved in science, of all ages, origins and functions, has united in a clear message: science and education are investments, it is on this basis that we can build a future for our people,” she said.

As part of the event’s program, Professor Goulart Silva participated in the roundtable “Carbon Nanostructures: The Next Technological Revolution?” which took place on July 17 from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. The other members of the roundtable were Professor Aldo Zarbin (UFPR), President of the Brazilian Society of Chemistry (SBQ), and Professor Marcos Pimenta (UFMG), coordinator of the INCT of Carbon Nanomaterials and of the Center for Nanomaterials (CTNano), of which Professor Goulart Silva is vice-coordinator.

Carbon nanomaterials, their structure, properties and applications were presented at the roundtable, which had a large audience and many questions raised, focusing on their potential to contribute to various technological areas. “We discussed how nanotechnology can impact a new technological era that has sustainability as a fundamental requirement,” informed the scientific director of SBPMat. “The members and participants of the roundtable expounded on a joint vision that a wide range of nanomaterials will occupy relevant spaces in future technologies. Not only carbon nanomaterials, but also that carbon nanotubes and graphene are indisputably very important systems in this set,” she says.

According to Goulart Silva, all participants in the session emphasized the need for investments in science and technology in Brazil, so that the advances made in areas such as nanotechnology continue.

Featured paper: Graphene nanoflakes for a super-resistant mortar.

Posted on Monday 31 de July de 2017

[Paper: Enhanced properties of cement mortars with multilayer graphene nanoparticles. Rodrigo Alves e Silva, Paulo de Castro Guetti, Mário Sérgio da Luz, Francisco Rouxinol, Rogério Valentim Gelamo. Construction and Building Materials. Volume 149, 15. September 2017, pages 378-385. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.05.146]

Graphene nanoflakes for a super-resistant mortar

Scanning electron microscopy image of the reinforced mortar sample. In the center of the image, some multilayer graphene nanoflakes.

Researchers from Brazilian institutions added nanometric graphene flakes to cement mortar and obtained a composite with resistance of almost 150% higher than that of conventional mortar. By means of simpler, faster and cheaper processes than previously reported in the scientific literature, the team created a reinforced mortar ready for use in civil construction. The work was reported in a paper that has just been published in a journal of the Elsevier publishing house dedicated to investigation and innovative use of materials in construction and repair, Construction and Building Materials (impact factor: 3.169).

Compared to traditional mortar, the new graphene-reinforced mortar can be used in smaller amounts and is less likely to crack over time, explains Professor Rogério Valentim Gelamo, the corresponding author of the article. Moreover, its manufacturing process poses no health or environmental risks and no further procedure is required for its complete handling and application.

Professor Gelamo believes that the powder-based multilayer graphene nanoflakes could be sold in ampoules with the required quantity to be added to 1 cubic meter of mortar. The reinforced mortar would cost around U$ 5 more per cubic meter. “The cost is really low and it could be applied or marketed by a company interested in this, since the large-scale manufacturing is already proficient in our Laboratory of Thin Films and Plasma Processes of the Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM) in the city of Uberaba” declares Professor Gelamo.

The idea of this work came about when Gelamo decided to look for applications for the multilayer graphene he had developed during his post-doctorate at the Center for Semiconductor Components from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), along with Francisco Rouxinol, also a postdoc. The material and its process have already been the object of papers and a patent. In 2010, Gelamo became adjunct professor of the newly created Institute of Technological and Exact Sciences at UFTM. There, teaching in the first Civil Engineering course, Professor Gelamo met the undergraduate student Rodrigo Alves e Silva, who was enthusiastic with the idea of using multilayer graphene in the mortar. Another professor of UFTM, Paulo Guetti, joined them. “Together we carried out the first experiments with these composites, which to our surprise gave excellent results in the first tests,” recalls Professor Gelamo.

The multilayer graphene was obtained from graphite flakes donated by the Brazilian National Grafite company. Using isopropyl alcohol the researchers extracted nanoflakes formed by a maximum of 40 superimposed graphene layers, each one an atom thick, with total thickness of 0.7 nm to 20 nm. The result: multilayer graphene nanoflakes with almost no defects, in the form of powder ready to be dispersed in the mortar. The underlying idea of our work was to use graphene multilayers obtained by simpler, faster and cheaper processes than those used to obtain oxidized and chemically reduced graphene. This enabled to combine practicality and economy with the excellent thermal and mechanical properties of the graphene layers,” says Gelamo. “The way graphene is currently obtained (Hammer or similar method) creates many defects in the graphene structure, which ends up compromising its properties,” he adds.

In the second step, the scientists prepared mortar with the conventional water, cement and sand ratio, and reinforced it with five different percentages of multilayer graphene nanoflakes, ranging from 0% (mortar without graphene) to 0.033%. “Our dispersion was also performed in an innovative and simple way, using only organic solvents mixed directly on the still dry mortar composite,” reports Professor Gelamo. The team was then able to obtain a mixture without the graphene agglomerations that are cited in most articles on cement and graphene composites.

With the five types of mortar, the team prepared cylindrical samples 5 cm in diameter and 10 cm long and tested their compressive and tensile strengths. The tests were performed 3, 7, and 28 days after the mortar preparation, following the respective standards of the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT). All tests showed significant increases in mortar strength when reinforced with the multilayer graphene. In particular, the best tensile strength test result was obtained with samples containing the highest percentage of graphene, 7 days after its manufacture: 144.4% increase in strength compared to conventional mortar samples. As for the compressive strength, the best result (an increase of 95.7%) was achieved with the addition of 0.021% of multilayer graphene, 28 days after the mortar preparation.

The morphology and composition of the samples and the materials used in their manufacture were analyzed using several techniques. These analyses helped the team understand why adding multilayer graphene nanoflakes resulted in such significant mortar strength increases. According to the authors of the article, the presence of this graphene accelerates the hydration reaction of the mortar, generating changes in its structure and composition which in turn improve the propagation of internal stresses through the material, thereby helping to prevent the occurrence of cracks.

Notwithstanding the success obtained by applying the multilayer graphene in the mortar, Professor Gelamo continues looking for other applications for his graphene nanoflakes through partnerships with Brazilian and international groups. “We have used multi-layer graphene in field-emitting devices, batteries, flexible and self-supporting supercapacitors, chemical and biological sensors, nanofluids for machining, and other applications,” he says. “We have also functionalized the graphene multilayers with reactive plasmas in order to change the properties of these materials, with some works already published,” he adds.

The research that originated the Construction and Building Materials article was carried out with financial support from Brazilian agencies CNPq, Capes and Fapemig.

The authors of the paper. From the left, Rodrigo Alves e Silva (UFTM), Paulo de Castro Guetti (UFTM), Mário Sergio da Luz (UFTM), Francisco Paulo Rouxinol (Unicamp) and Rogério Valentim Gelamo (UFTM). — The authors of the paper. From the left, Rodrigo Alves e Silva (UFTM), Paulo de Castro Guetti (UFTM), Mário Sergio da Luz (UFTM), Francisco Paulo Rouxinol (Unicamp), and Rogério Valentim Gelamo (UFTM).