B-MRS Newsletter. Year 6, issue 7.

 

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Newsletter of the
Brazilian Materials
Research Society

Year 6, issue 7. August 7, 2019.

B-MRS Public Notice

The directory and board of the Brazilian Materials Research Society (B-MRS) are in solidarity with the Director of INPE, Prof. Ricardo Magnus Osório Galvão, with regard to the unsubstantiated claims by President Jair Bolsonaro (…)

Access here the full public notice.

B-MRS News

– XIX B-MRS Meeting + IUMRS-ICEM 2020 (Iguassu Falls, Brazil, August 30 to September 3, 2020). The Brazilian Materials Research Society (B-MRS) and the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) invite the international scientific community to submit symposium proposals for the joint event that will include B-MRS annual event and the IUMRS International Electronic Materials Conference. The symposium call is open until October 31, 2019. Learn more, here.

Elections at B-MRS. The electoral commission has already approved the nominations. Get to know the candidates on the ticket for the Executive Board and the list of members who showed interest in being elected members of the Deliberative Council, here. Voting time will be from September 22 to October 4, 2019. Members with paid membership annuity will be able to vote online in their member areas on the B-MRS website or in person during the XVIII B-MRS Meeting, at the venue.

Featured Paper

A multidisciplinary scientific team developed in Brazilian laboratories a nanomaterial with interesting magnetic, luminescent and biochemical properties, and found its low toxicity in in vivo tests performed with zebrafish embryos. This nanomaterial can act as a nanoplatform for the development of healthcare, biotechnology and environmental applications. A paper about the work was recently published and featured on cover of ACS Applied Nano Materials. Know more.

artigo news

Featured Scientist

We interviewed Professor Julia Greer of the California Institute of Technology (USA). Author of seminal contributions to nanomechanics, the scientist, who is also a pianist, currently develops innovative three-dimensional structures based on nanomaterials, and studies on how their superior properties arise from the interaction between atomic, nano and micro scales. At the XVIII B-MRS Meeting, she will give a talk about these interesting metamaterials. See our interview.

julia greer

From Idea to Innovation

Innoma intends to spread innovation in the Brazilian industry. The startup develops technologies to produce high-efficiency nanoactives that can be used as raw materials by companies in various segments. The first product, an antimicrobial silver nanoactive, is already being marketed. Know more about Innoma here.

logo innoma

News from B-MRS Members

– Paper of B-MRS member Oswaldo Luiz Alves (IQ – Unicamp) is selected for collection of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Know more.

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XVIII B-MRS Meeting
(Balneário Camboriú, Brazil, September 22 – 26, 2019)

Website: www.sbpmat.org.br/18encontro/

Registration. Early registration (with special fees) was extended to August 9. Know more, here.

Program. The program of the event “at a glance” is online, showing technical and social activities and the distribution of oral and poster sessions. See here.

Posters printing service. The poster file can be sent by email and later pick up the impression at the event location. Know more, here.

Venue. The meeting will be held in the delightful Balneário Camboriú at the Hotel Sibara Flat & Conventions, located in the center of the city, close to many hotels, restaurants and shops, and only 100 meters from the sea. More information, here.

Opening ceremony venue. The opening ceremony, the memorial lecture and the welcome cocktail will be held on September 22 (Sunday) at the Cristo Luz complex, one of the main tourist attractions in the city. There will be transportation to the venue, leaving the Hotel Sibara from 17:00 on. Know more about this place, here.

Memorial Lecture. The traditional Memorial Lecture Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro will be given by Professor Yvonne Primerano Mascarenhas (IFSC – USP). Know more about the speaker, here.

Event party. The party will be held in the lounge of the Green Valley, a prominent nightclub. Learn more about Green Valley, here. The party will feature the striking Brothers band. Watch the Brothers, here.

Host city. Balneário Camboriú (SC) is an important tourist destination that offers urban and wild beaches, ecotourism and adventure sports, boat trips, bicycles and cable cars – all within a unique landscape that combines mountains, sea and skyscrapers. The visitor has access to many options of gastronomy, lodging and shopping, as well as the bustling nightlife that stands out in the Brazilian scenario.

Lodging, tickets, transfers etc. Check the hotel options and the official travel agency of the event, here.

Plenary lectures. Leading scientists from institutions in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States will deliver plenary talks on cutting-edge issues at the event. There will also be a plenary session by the Brazilian scientist Antônio José Roque da Silva, director of CNPEM and the Sirius project (new Synchrotron Light Lab). Learn more about the plenary sessions, here.

Symposia. 23 symposia proposed by the international scientific community compose this edition of the event. See the symposia list, here.

Organization. The chair of the event is Professor Ivan Helmuth Bechtold (Physics Department of UFSC) and the co-chair is Professor Hugo Gallardo (Department of Chemistry of UFSC). The program committee is formed by professors Iêda dos Santos (UFPB), José Antônio Eiras (UFSCar), Marta Rosso Dotto (UFSC) and Mônica Cotta (Unicamp). Get to know all the organizers, here.

Exhibitors and sponsors. 41 companies have already confirmed their participation in the event. Those interested in sponsoring/support can contact Alexandre at the e-mail comercial@sbpmat.org.br.

Reading Tips

– 2018 Impact factors: results from ACS Publications journals. Know more.

– Optical computing: metamaterial solves equation by processing optical signals (Science paper). Know more.

– Scientists from Brazil develop tumor cell membrane nanocapsules that carry drugs across the body and release them into tumors to fight cancer by combining hyperthermia and chemotherapy (paper from Applied Bio Materials). Know more.

Events

20th International Sol-Gel Conference. Saint Petersburg (Russia). August 25 – 30, 2019. Site.

2nd CINE-M2P workshop. São Paulo, SP (Brazil). August 26 – 27, 2019. Site.

V Reunião Anual sobre Argilas Aplicadas. Franca, SP (Brazil). August 28 – 30, 2019. Site.

21st Materials Research Society of Serbia Annual Conference (YUCOMAT 2019) and 11th IISS World Round Table Conference on Sintering (WRTCS 2019). Herceg Novi (Montenegro). September 2 – 6, 2019. Site.

R2B Research to Business Itália-Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). September 19, 2019. Site.

XVIII B-MRS Meeting. Balneário Camboriú, SC (Brazil). September 22 – 26, 2019. Site.

XL CBRAVIC (Brazilian Congress on Vacuum Applications in Industry and Science). October, 7 – 11, 2019. Site.

XII Brazilian Symposium on Glass and Related Materials. Lavras, MG (Brazil). October 22 – 25, 2019. Site.

19th Brazilian Workshop on Semiconductor Physics. Fortaleza, CE (Brazil). November 18 – 22, 2019. Site.

XIX B-MRS Meeting e 2020 IUMRS ICEM (International Conference on Electronic Materials). Foz do Iguaçu, PR (Brazil). August 30 -September 3, 2020. Site.

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You can suggest news, opportunities, events or reading tips in the materials field to be covered by B-MRS Newsletter. Write to comunicacao@sbpmat.org.br.

 

Interview with Prof. Pulickel Ajayan (Rice University).

Pulickel Ajayan
Pulickel Ajayan

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

Kirk Schanze
Kirk Schanze

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).

Kenneth Gonsalves
Kenneth Gonsalves

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/

B-MRS newsletter. Year 4, issue 7.

 


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

 

 

Interview with Prof. Alexander Yarin (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA).

Prof. Alexander Yarin
Prof. Alexander Yarin

At the University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor Alexander Yarin and his team use agro-waste materials derived from various plants and animals to form nanofibers. Such nanofibers possess important properties, which are of interest for various applications. The group demonstrated that the method they employ (solution blowing) can be implemented on the industrial scale using commercially available equipment.

At the XVI B-MRS Meeting (September 10-14, Gramado, Brazil), Yarin will deliver a plenary lecture on the fabrication and properties of these nanofibers formed from different agro-waste materials, and will show the results of their application as biomedical materials and adsorbents useful for heavy metal ion removal from polluted water. He will also discuss potential applications of such biodegradabe and biocompatible nano-textured membranes for protection of pruned plants from esca fungi and against mold invasion in wood.

Alexander L. Yarin graduated in Applied Physics from the Polytechnical Institute of St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1977. Then he moved to Moscow to the Institute for Problems in Mechanics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he remained until 1990 working as a researcher. In 1980, he received PhD in Physics and Mathematics and, in 1989, habilitation (DSc), both from the Institute for Problems in Mechanics. In parallel, Yarin was an adjunct Professor at the Physico-Technical Institute and at the Aviation Technology Institute in Moscow.

From 1990 to 2006, he was a Professor at the renowned Israeli university Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), where he held, from 1999, the Eduard Pestel Chair of Mechanical Engineering. During his sabbaticals, he was a visiting Professor at two American institutions, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1996-1997) and the University of Illinois at Chicago (2003-2004).

Since 2006, Alexander Yarin is a Distinguished Professor of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. At this University, Yarin heads the Multiscale Mechanics and Nanotechnology Laboratory, a space of more than 2,200 square feet dedicated to the experimental and theoretical investigation of the mechanics of fluids and solids, mainly in the scale that ranges from a few millimeters to the nanometers.

Yarin is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). He is an Associate Editor of the journal “Experiments in Fluids” and a member of the editorial boards of “Archives of Mechanics” and “Electrospinning”. He is a member of the International Editorial Advisory Board of the Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a co-Editor of Springer Handbook of Experimental Fluid Mechanics published in 2008. He has received distinctions from the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and from Technion (Israel), from the American Technion Society and the American Physical Society (United States), from the Technical University Darmstadt (Germany), from the Society of Mechanics of Taiwan, and from Elsevier, among others.

Owner of an h index of 54, Professor Yarin is the author of 4 books, 12 book chapters, 6 patents and about 300 scientific articles. His academic production has more than 21,500 citations, according to Google Scholar.

B-MRS newsletter: – In your plenary talk, you will talk about materials obtained by the process of solution blowing. Describe in few words what this process consists of and whether it is already used on an industrial scale.

Alexander Yarin: – Solution blowing is a relatively novel process designed to form monolithic and core-shell nanofibers from petroleum-derived and biopolymers derived from agro-waste (the latter are discussed in detail in the present talk). In this process, a slowly moving polymer solution jet is issued into a high-speed subsonic coaxial air jet. As a result, the polymer solution jet is stretched, then bends due to the aerodynamically-driven bending instability which causes dramatic stretching and thinning. In parallel, solvent evaporates, and precipitated dry nanofibers are deposited on a target surface in the form of a nonwoven mat. Recently, the solution blowing process was demonstrated using an industrially-available equipment and nanofiber mats containing soy protein were formed.

B-MRS newsletter: – What, in your opinion, are your main scientific or technological contributions to the field of nanofibers and related topics? Feel free to share some (few) references if you wish.

Alexander Yarin: – The explanation and theoretical description of the physical mechanisms involved in solution blowing and electrospinning, novel experimental methods and approaches, a wide usage of biopolymers, in particular, those derived as by-products of biofuel production, development of novel applications. Two recent comprehensive monographs outline many of the above-mentioned results:

  • A.L. Yarin, B. Pourdeyhimi, S. Ramakrishna. Fundamentals and Applications of Micro- and Nanofibers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014.
  • A.L. Yarin, I.V. Roisman, C. Tropea. Collision Phenomena in Liquids and Solids. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017.

B-MRS newsletter: – If you desire, leave an invitation to your plenary talk.

Alexander Yarin: – Green nano-textured materials can become such great scorers as Pele! Come and see how.


More information

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

ACS Publications will award prizes to the best student contributions of the XVI B-MRS Meeting.

Until August 14, undergratudate and graduate students who are authors of accepted abstracts can apply for the student awards of the XVI B-MRS Meeting. In addition to the traditional “Bernhard Gross Award” from the Brazilian Materials Research Society, this edition of the event will feature awards from the publisher of the American Chemical Society (ACS Publications), responsible for a number of very prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals in the materials field.

The Bernhard Gross Award was established by SBPMat in honor of the pioneer of Brazilian materials research Bernhard Gross, and it distinguish the best works (up to 1 oral and 1 poster) from each symposium.

Among the winners of the Bernhard Gross Award, the three best posters and the three best oral presentations will receive the “ACS Publications Best Poster Prize” and the “ACS Publications Best Oral Presentation Prize” respectively. The prizes will consist of US $ 500 for each winning work, in addition to the certificate. The ACS awards will be sponsored by the following ACS’s journals: ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, ACS Nano, Nano Letters, Chemistry of Materials, JACS and ACS Omega.

In order to compete for the prizes, students have to submit through the website of the event, an extended abstract, elaborated according to the template that is available in the instructions for authors.

The papers will be evaluated considering the quality of the extended abstracts and presentations, as well as the scientific contribution of the research work.

The Student Awards Ceremony will take place at the closing of the XVI B-MRS Meeting, on September 14. Prizes will only be given if the winner students are present at the ceremony.

Seis periódicos da ACS patrocinarão os prêmios para  as melhores contribuições de estudantes.
                                       Six ACS journals will sponsor the prizes for the best student contributions.