XV SBPMat Meeting will be held in Campinas in September 2016.

Where: Campinas city, São Paulo state.

When: 25 to 29 of September, 2016.

Important dates:

  • Symposium proposal submission: January 2016
  • Abstract submission: until May 30th
  • Notification of the accepted abstracts: July 10th

Chairs:

  • Ana Flávia Nogueira (IQ/UNICAMP)
  • Mônica Alonso Cotta (IFGW/UNICAMP)

Local committee:

  • Antonio Riul Jr (IFGW/UNICAMP)
  • Carlos Cesar Bof Bufon (LNNano/CNPEM)
  • Christoph Deneke (LNNano/CNPEM)
  • Fernando Sigoli (IQ /UNICAMP)
  • Francisco das Chagas Marques (IFGW/UNICAMP)
  • Jillian Nei Freitas (CTI Renato Archer)
  • Luiz Fernando Zagonel (IFGW/UNICAMP)
  • Talita Mazon (CTI Renato Archer)

Site: http://sbpmat.org.br/15encontro/home/

 

SBPMat newsletter. English edition. Year 2, issue 9.

 

Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat) newsletter

News update from Brazil for the Materials community

English edition. Year 2, issue 9. 

XIV Meeting - Rio de Janeiro, Sept 27 to Oct 1, 2015: announcements

Registrations: You can still register online here. During the meeting the secretary will be open for registrations from 5 pm to 7 pm on September 27, and from 7 am to 8h30 am on the other days. 

Message from the conference chairs: Some words from Prof. Marco Cremona and Prof. Fernando Lázaro Freire Jr., with some information about the meeting. Here.

Opening session: It will take place on Sunday (27) at 7 pm, comprising a brief ceremony and the Memorial Lecture “Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro”, which will honor Prof. Eloisa Biasotto Mano, professor emeritus from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). After that, the attendees will be welcomed to the event with a cocktail. Know more about Eloisa Mano.

Simposia sessions and plenary talks: Near 2,500 works were accepted for presentation within the 27 simposia of this year´s meeting (1,892 posters, 368 oral presentations and 189 invited speechs). The meeting will also have 7 plenary talks given by internationally renowned scientists. See days and times of sessions in the program at a glance and in the full program.

Posters printing service: See options here.

Expositors technical presentations: On Wednesday (30), in room C, expositors will talk about fabrication and characterization techniques. Know more. 

Exhibition: 32 stands comprise the exhibition, held on the second floor near the coffee break tables.

Closing session and awards: This final session will take place on Thursday (1) at 12:30. 4 awards will be granted: the Bernhard Gross Award (students´ best oral and best poster of each simposium), the IUMRS Award will (3 best posters among Bernhard Gross awarded), the Horiba Award (best oral presentation and best poster of all the event), and the E-MRS Award (best oral presentation and the 2 best posters from symposium C). 

Tourist information: Flights and hotel booking, transfers, tours, maps and more useful information, on the site of Follow Up agency

Party: The party of the meeting will be held on Wednesday (30) at 8h30 pm in Espaço Rampa. Tickets will be sold for R$ 15,00.

Meeting papers publication: Authors of works presented in the meeting will have the possibility to submit papers to peer review for publication in IOP Materials journals. The papers of the XIV SBPMat Meeting accepted for publication in any of the 5 IOP journals will be gathered in an online collection dedicated to the event.The submissions are open up to October 15. Know more.

Go to the event website.

Plenary talks of the meeting: know more about the speechs and the speakers

When interacting with advanced materials, light and other waves can behave in quite an unusual way. In the XIV SBPMat Meeting, Nader Engheta, a world expert in materials created by humans known as metamaterials, will speak of extraordinary phenomena that occur when materials developed in his research group interact with light. Among other significant contributions, Engheta and his colleagues have created nanoscale optical circuits using metamaterial arrangements. In an interview to our newsletter, this Professor of the University of Pennsylvania (United States) spoke of this and other contributions, which were published in some of the most renowned scientific journals. In a message to our readers, he mentioned the thrills of a scientist’s life. See the interview.

We also interviewed Professor Edgar Zanotto (UFSCar, Brazil), whose plenary talk will be about glass-ceramics – materials formed from the crystallization of certain glasses. Since the beginning of his scientific career, Zanotto has been studying the mechanisms for glass-ceramics formation and developing applications for them. In the XIV SBPMat Meeting, the scientist will talk about past and future, including the development of new glass-ceramics and their use in new products. See the interview.
We also interviewed Professor Paul Ducheyne, from the University of Pennsylvania (USA). For about 4 decades, Ducheyne has dedicated himself to the study of biomaterials, field in which he is the author of hundreds of papers summing over 10,000 citations, besides 40 patents and books. In the interview, Ducheyne listed some of his most important contributions to the field, such as explaining how synthetic materials lead to tissue formation. In his plenary talk during the XIV SBPMat Meeting, Ducheyne will obviously address biomaterials; particularly bioactive ceramics with in situ functionalization and sol-gel materials used for the release of drugs and growth factors. See the interview.
Professor Ulrike Diebold (UT Wien, Austria) will speak in the XIV SBPMat Meeting about the surfaces of metal oxides. These materials are used for gas monitoring, catalysis, anti-corrosion, energy conversion, pigmentation and many other applications. Using her scanning tunneling microscopes (STM), Diebold investigates, for example, atomic-scale defects in the network of metal oxides. In our interview, she talked about his major contributions in the field of metal oxides and about the power of STM technique for the study of surfaces. She also left a tempting invitation to go to her lecture. See the interview.
Organic electronics applied to the study of the brain and the diagnosis and treatment of neurological deseases will be addressed by Professor George Malliaras, director of the department of Bioelectronics of the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne (France). Examples of these applications are devices based on organic materials used to record and stimulate the cerebral activity. In an interview to our newsletter, Malliaras spoke about the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to generate research with social impact in his research field. The scientist also mentioned some of his main contributions in organic electronics and bioelectronics. See the interview.
Professor Ichiro Takeuchi, from the University of Maryland (USA), will talk in the SBPMat Meeting about the combinatorial approach in the field of Materials. This methodology, which substantially accelerates the rate of several research processes, has been helping Professor Takeuchi to discover a number of compounds and develop strategies to quickly determine the relation between composition, structure and property in many materials. In our interview, the scientist explains how the combinatorial research works in practice, and lists some of his main contributions to the field. He also discusses a topic of his plenary lecture: the “integrated materials engine”, which combines theory and high-throughput experiments in order to discover new materials. See the interview.
In times of “big data”, Professor Claudia Draxl, from Humboldt University (Germany), will discourse about how to exploit the wealth of information, inherently inside the materials data, which promises unprecedented insight.

See her Bio. Here.

See the abstract of the talk. Here.

To suggest news, opportunities, events, papers, interviewees or reading recommendations items for inclusion in our newsletter, write to comunicacao@sbpmat.org.br.

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SBPMat newsletter. English edition. Year 2, issue 8.

 

Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat) newsletter

News update from Brazil for the Materials community

English edition. Year 2, issue 8. 

SBPMat news: XIV Meeting – Rio de Janeiro, Sept 27 to Oct 1, 2015

Registrations: You can register online here. During the meeting,the secretary will be open for registrations from 5 pm to 7 pm on September 27, and from 7 am to 8h30 am on the other days. 

Program: See here the program at a glance and here the full program.

Meeting papers publication: Authors of works presented in the meeting will have the possibility to submit papers to peer review for publication in IOP Materials journals. The papers of the XIV SBPMat Meeting accepted for publication in any of the 5 IOP journals will be gathered in an online collection dedicated to the event.The submissions are open up to October 15. Know more.

Awards: This year, 4 awards will be granted in the meeting. The Bernhard Gross Award for undergraduate and graduate students will ditinguish the best works (at most, one oral and one poster) of each simposium. The IUMRS (International Union of Materials Research Societies) Award will be granted to the 3 best posters among the set of works awarded with Bernhard Gross Award. The Horiba Award will be granted to the best oral presentation and best poster of all the event. The E-MRS (European Materials Research Society) Award will distinguish the best oral presentation and the 2 best posters of symposium C. 

Hosting: A list of hotels is available, with special conditions for participants of the XIV SBPMat Meeting. Here.

Sponsors and exhibitors: 30 companies have already booked their place in the XIV SBPMat Meeting. Contact for exhibitors and other sponsors: rose@metallum.com.br.

Go to the event website.

XIV SBPMat Meeting: Memorial Lecture for Eloisa Biasotto Mano
The Memorial Lecture “Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro” (SBPMat award for researchers with outstanding carrer) will be granted to Eloisa Biasotto Mano. Professor Eloisa, who pursued international scientific education at a time when most women were illiterate in Brazil, founded in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) the first research group in polymers in the country. This group later became the Institute of Macromolecules (IMA), which was directed by Eloisa until she retired. On the evening of September 27, during the opening of the XIV SBPMat meeting, this professor emeritus from UFRJ, who is aged 90, will be awarded by SBPMat and will speak of the importance of macromolecular materials. Know more about Prof. Eloisa.

 

XIV SBPMat Meeting: interviews with plenary speakers

When interacting with advanced materials, light and other waves can behave in quite an unusual way. In the XIV SBPMat Meeting, Nader Engheta, a world expert in materials created by humans known as metamaterials, will speak of extraordinary phenomena that occur when materials developed in his research group interact with light. Among other significant contributions, Engheta and his colleagues have created nanoscale optical circuits using metamaterial arrangements. In an interview to our newsletter, this Professor of the University of Pennsylvania (United States) spoke of this and other contributions, which were published in some of the most renowned scientific journals. In a message to readers, he mentioned the thrills of a scientist’s life. See the interview.

Featured paper

A team of scientists from Brazilian institutions (UCS, Unicamp and UFRGS), with a chemical approach on an issue traditionally addressed with physics, managed to advance in the understanding of adhesion and delamination of DLC thin films deposited on steel surfaces. The results of the study, which were published in ACS journal devoted to applied interfaces and materials, can help optimize the deposition of these films, thus expanding its use in the industry in applications of high impact, such as increasing the energy efficiency of car engines. See our story about the paper.

SBPMat´s community people

We interviewed Sergio Neves Monteiro, currently Professor at the Brazilian Militar Institute of Engineering (IME). Neves Monteiro worked in the introduction of Materials research in Rio de Janeiro State. He was associate dean of graduate studies and research at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), higher education secretary in the Ministry of Education, assistant secretary of science and technology in the State of Rio de Janeiro and president of the Rio de Janeiro research foundation (FAPERJ), among other functions. In an interview to our newsletter, he spoke a bit about his career and left a message for our readers who are beginning their careers as researchers: “I remember you that, much more than a career with stability and adequate remuneration in teaching and research institutions, being a researcher can bring great personal satisfaction and the certainty of contributing directly to the country’s development. See the interview.

 

Victor Pandolfelli, Professor ar the Materials Department at the Federal University of São Carlos (DEMa – UFSCar) received the “Theodore J. Planje – St. Louis Refractories Award – 2015”. Since the establishement of the prize in 1967, Pandolfelli was the first winner in the southern hemisphere of this award on refractable ceramic materials of the American Ceramic Society.

 

Reading tips
Scientific journalism stories based on highlighted papers

  • An interdisciplinary team formulates a theoretical frame for crystals that organized into complex structures, impacting biology, geology, materials and other areas (based on paper from Science). See here.
  • Scientists develop ink that breaks the record of conductivity among materials that stretch over 150% (based on paper from Nature Communications). See here.

News from Brazilian National Institutes of Science and Technology (INCTs) and Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (CEPIDs)

  • In São Carlos, school on glasses and glass-ceramics gathered 100 doctoral students from around the world for eight days for education and networking (short report of the organizers). See here.
  • Video interview to Elson Longo and Edgar Zanotto, coordinators of CEPIDs on the field of materials, held during the 67th Meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC). See here. 
Events
  • XXII Reunião da Associação Brasileira de Cristalografia (ABCr) and I Reunião da Latin America Crystallographic Association (LACA). São Paulo e Campinas, SP (Brazil). September, 9 to 11, 2015. Site.
  • I Workshop Universidade-Indústria em Materiais Vítreos. São Carlos, SP (Brazil). September, 11, 2015. Program.
  • 2015 IUCr High-Pressure Workshop. Campinas, SP (Brazil). September, 12 to 15, 2015. Site.
  • Workshop em Ciências dos Materiais. São Carlos, SP (Brazil). September, 21 to 25, 2015. Site.
  • XIV SBPMat Meeting. Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). September 27 to October 1, 2015. Site.
  • 8th International Summit on Organic and Hybrid Solar Cells Stability (ISOS-8). Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). September 29 to October 1, 2015. Site.
  • 13th International Conference on Plasma Based Ion Implantation & Deposition (PBII&D 2015). Buenos Aires (Argentina). October, 5 to 9, 2015. Site.
  • Nanomercosur 2015. Buenos Aires (Argentina). October, 6 to 8, 2015. Site.
  • 4th EPNOE International Polysaccharide Conference. Warsaw (Poland). October, 18 to 22, 2015. Site.
  • 10th Ibero-American Workshop on Complex Fluids 2015. Florianópolis, SC (Brazil). October, 25 to 29, 2015. Site.
  • 14th International Union of Materials Research Societies – International Conference on Advanced Materials (IUMRS-ICAM 2015). Jeju (Korea). October, 25 to 29, 2015. Site.
  • Polymers and Self-Assembly: from Biology to Nanomaterials. Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). October, 25 to 30, 2015. Site.
  • III Método Rietveld de Refinamento de Estrutura. Belém, PA (Brazil). October, 26 to 30, 2015. Site.
  • 16th International Feofilov Symposium on spectroscopy of crystals doped with rare earth and transition metal ions. St Petersburg (Russia). November, 9 to 13, 2015. Site.
  • 6th Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) Summer School. Campinas, SP (Brazil). January, 11 to 29, 2016. Site.
  • 43rd International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF). San Diego (EUA). April, 25 to 29, 2016. Site.
To suggest news, opportunities, events, papers, interviewees or reading recommendations items for inclusion in our newsletter, write to comunicacao@sbpmat.org.br.

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SBPMat´s community people: interview with Fernando Galembeck.

To Fernando Galembeck, Director of the Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory (LNNano) from 2011 to 2015, the interest in research started to appear during his adolescence, when, working in his father’s pharmaceutical lab, he realized the economic importance that new products, resulting from efforts in scientific research, had on the company. Currently aged 72, Fernando Galembeck, looking back at his own scientific path, can tell us several stories in which the knowledge produced by him, jointly with his collaborators, is not only transmitted through scientific papers, theses and books, but has taken form as licensed patents and new or improved products.

Galembeck received his Degree in Chemistry in 1964 from the University of São Paulo (USP). After graduating, he stayed at USP, teaching (1965 – 1980) and, simultaneously, conducting his doctoral studies in Chemistry (1965 – 1970) with a research work on the metal-metal bond dissociation. Once his doctoral studies were completed, he held post-doctoral fellowships in the United States, at the universities of Colorado, in the city of Denver (1972-1973) and California, in the city of Davis (1974), working in the field of Physical Chemistry of biological systems. In 1976, back at USP, he had the chance to create a colloids and surfaces laboratory in its Chemistry Institute. From that moment, Galembeck has been increasingly involved in the development of new materials, especially the polymeric ones, and their manufacturing processes.

In 1980, he started teaching at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), where he became a Full Professor in 1988, position he held until his retirement in 2011. At Unicamp, he held management positions such as University Vice-Dean, as well as Director of the Institute of Chemistry and Coordinator of its graduate studies program. In July, 2011, he took over the recently created LNNano, at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM).

Throughout his career, in Brazil, he held management functions at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCT), National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), Brazilian Chemical Society (SBQ), Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC) and Brazilian Society for Microscopy and Microanalysis (SBMM), among other entities.

Holder of a 1A-level fellowship for research productivity at CNPq, Galembeck is the author of almost 250 scientific paper published on international peer reviewed journals, which count with over 2,300 citations, as well as 29 deposited patents and over 20 books and chapters in books. He has advised almost 80 Master’s and Doctoral researches.

He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2011 Anísio Teixeira Awards, from CAPES, the Brazilian agency for the improvement of graduate courses; the 2011 Telesio-Galilei Gold Medal, from the Telesio-Galilei Academy of Science (TGAS); the 2006 Almirante Álvaro Alberto Award for Science and Technology, from CNPq and the Conrado Wessel foundation; the 2006 José Pelúcio Ferreira Trophy, from Finep (Brazilian entity for funding of studies and projects); the 2000 Grand Cross of the National Order of Scientific Merit and the 1995 National Commendation of Scientific Merit, both from the President of the Republic of Brazil. He has also received several awards from companies and scientific and business associations, such as CPL,  Petrobras, Union Carbide do Brasil, the Brazilian Paint Manufacturers Association, the  Brazilian Chemical Industry Association, the Union from the Industry of Chemicals for Industrial Use from the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Polymer Association, the Brazilian Chemical Society – which created the Fernando Galembeck Award of Technological Innovation, the Engineers Union from the State of São Paulo and the Electrostatic Society of America.

What follows is an interview with the scientist:

SBPMat Newsletter: – Tell us what led you to become a scientist and work on issues in the field of Materials.

Fernando Galembeck: – My interest in research work started during my adolescence, when I comprehended the importance of new knowledge, of discovery. I found this when I was working, after school, at my father’s pharmaceutical laboratory, as I could see how the newest, latest products, were important. I also saw how costly it was, for the lab, to depend on imported products, which were not produced in Brazil, and that in the country there was no competence to manufacture them.  Then I realized the value of new knowledge, as well as the importance and the economic and strategic significance of such breakthroughs.

This feeling was increased when I took my major in Chemistry. I enrolled into the Chemistry course because one of my school teachers had suggested that I should seek a career related to research. He must have seen some inclination, some tendency of mine. So I attended the Chemistry course provided by the Philosophy School, in an environment where the research activity was very vivid. Because of that, I decided to conduct my Doctoral studies at USP. At that time, there were no regular graduate studies in Brazil yet. The advisor with whom I defended my dissertation, Professor Pawel Krumholz, was a great researcher, who also had built a very important career working on a company. He was the industrial director of Orquima, a major company by that time. That boosted my interest in research.

I worked with Chemistry for some years and my interest in materials came from a curious occurring. I was almost graduating, in my last vacations during the undergraduate studies.  I was at an apartment, resting after lunch. I remember looking at the walls of this apartment and noticing that, with all I had learned in the Chemistry course, I did not have much to say about the things I could see: the paint, the coverings etc. That was Chemistry, but also Materials, and there was not much interest in Materials in the Chemistry course. Actually, Materials became very important in Chemistry mainly because of plastic and rubber, which, at the time, did not have the importance they have today. I am talking about 1964, approximately.

Well, then I started to work with Physical Chemistry, to later work a little in a field that is more oriented to Biochemistry, that is Biological Physical Chemistry and, in 1976, I received a task from the USP Department, which was to build a colloids and surfaces laboratory.  One of our first projects was to modify plastic surfaces, in that case, Teflon. Then I realized that a major part of the colloids and surfaces Chemistry existed due to Materials, because the subject lends itself to create and develop new materials. From that moment on, I was getting increasingly involved with Materials, mainly polymers, a little less with ceramics, and even less with metals.

SBPMat Newsletter: – What are, in your own opinion, your main contributions to the field of Materials? Consider, in your answer, all aspects of your professional activity, including cases of knowledge transfer to the industry.

Fernando Galembeck: – I will tell the story in order, more or less. I think that the first important result in the field of Materials was exactly a technique intended to modify the surface of Teflon, that material in which it is very difficult to stick something. There is even that expression, “Teflon politicians”, the ones for which does not matter what you throw at them, they do not stick to anything. But, in certain situations, we want the Teflon to have adhesion; we want some things to stick. So, by a somewhat complicated path, I managed to see that I already knew how to modify Teflon, but I had never realized that is was important. I knew the phenomenon; I had observed it during my PhD defense. I knew that there was a change happening in Teflon. But it was during a visit to a Unilever laboratory in 1976, when I was talking to a researcher, that I saw that there were people striving to modify the surface of Teflon and achieve adhesion. Then, bringing the problem and the solution together, as soon as I returned to Brazil, I tried to see if I what I had previously observed was really useful, and it worked. That led to the first paper I wrote by myself and my first patent application, at a time when almost nobody talked about patents in Brazil, especially in the university environment. I was very enthusiastic about this: I was approached by companies that were interested in applying what I had done; one the modification in Teflon itself, the other in a different polymer. So I felt great, because I had made a discovery, I had a patent, and there were companies which, at least, would like to know what it was to see if there was a way to use it. One more thing:  soon after the paper I wrote was published, I was invited to attend a conference in the United States, which addressed exactly the issue of modifying surfaces. Polymers, plastic and rubber surfaces, a subject with which I was involved for pretty much the rest of my life, up until now.

I will mention a second fact that did not have the same effects, so far.  I discovered a method that enables the characterization and separation of very small particles. That was a very interesting paper. It was released, also produced a patent, but had no practical consequences. Recently, there have been some issues related to nanoparticles, which is a very important subject in Materials now, offering a chance to apply what I did over 30 years ago. The name of the technique is osmosedimentation.

Next there was some work that I did by collaborating in projects with Pirelli Cabos. With all this story of surfaces and polymers, I think I had become more or less known and was approached by Pirelli, which contracted me as a consultant and commissioned projects I had at Unicamp. An outcome of these projects, that I think is the most important, was the development of an insulator for very high voltages. This work was not only mine, but rather of a very large team, in which I took part. There were several people from Pirelli, and several from Unicamp. The result of this project was that the Brazilian Pirelli managed to be hired to provide high voltage cables for the Eurotunnel, back in the ‘80s. I think this was a very important case, as it led to a product and brought substantial economic results. I would like to stress that this was done in Brazil, by a Brazilian team. They were not a Brazilian company, but the team was based here.

Then, there were several projects with nanoparticles, at a time when we did not even call them nanoparticles; we used to call them fine particles, or simply small colloidal particles. The first paper I released on nanoparticles was in 1978. There were other things after that, which, ultimately, led to a paper on aluminum phosphate, which resulted in dissertations and papers, as well as a license by a company named Amorphic Solutions, from the Bunge group, that basically explores aluminum phosphate. The subject started at my lab, stayed there for many years, then a company of the Bunge group here in Brazil got interested, started participating, and we collaborated. That became a major development project. Later, Bunge found it infeasible to carry on with the project in Brazil and today is in the United States. I think it is a shame that they are there, but there were some other issues involved, including a disagreement with Unicamp, who holds the patents. If you check Amorphic Solutions page on the internet you may see many applications of the product. As far as I know, they are currently emphasizing its use as an anti-corrosive material to protect steel.

About the same time, in another project on nanoparticles, clay/natural rubber nanocomposites were developed. This was licensed by a Brazilian company called Orbys, which released a product called Imbrik, a product that the company provides, for example, in order to make rubber rolls for paper manufacturing.

Another case with a product. I had done a project with Oxiteno, which manufactures raw materials for latex, the surfactants. They wanted to get an ideia of how much you can change the latex changing the surfactant. I conducted a project with them that I consider one of the most interesting among those in which I have been involved. In the end, we realized that, by changing the surfactant a bit, we changed the latex a lot. These are used in paints, adhesives, resins. So we realized we had a great variability. This work was published and promoted. It did not result in a patent because it was a comprehension project. So, another company, Indústrias Químicas Taubaté (IQT) approached me to produce cationic latex, but using a new path. Cationic latex in general is made of quaternary ammonium salts, which have some environmental restrictions. The company wanted an alternative that did not have those restrictions. By the end of the project, we produced cationic latex without environmental restrictions, and the IQT put the product on the market.

There was another case that was also very interesting, even though it was canceled. Here in Brazil, there was a large manufacturer of polyethylene terephthalate, PET, which is used for many things, including bottles. They knew about the work I had done with nanocomposites, the one with Orbys I mentioned before, so they approached me wanting to produce PET nanocomposites. We had to find out how to escape from what was already patented abroad and discovered a whole new path. The company was called Rhodia-Ster, and today it is part of another Italian company, called Mossi e Ghisolfi. The company was enthusiastic and ended up patenting it in Brazil, and then later abroad. At a certain point, they decided that they would conduct the work internally, and so they did for some years. One day, my contact within the company called me to tell this: “look, we were working with two technologies; the one held by Unicamp and another one, in another country. Both are working, but the company has reached a point where it has chosen to complete the development of only one”.  When coming to the final stage in developing materials, the projects costs are too high. One have to use large amounts of materials, run many tests with customers. So, the company decided to take one project further, and, unfortunately, it was not the one in which I had worked. At the end, it was a little frustrating, but I think that it was interesting, because, during this whole time, the company invested a lot in the path we had started here. Not only that, each project brings resources for the laboratory, brings money to hire people, more jobs etc. So, these projects result in many benefits, even when they are not concluded.

Now, skipping some bits, I will reach the last result, which is fairly recent, happening after I left Unicamp and came to the CNPEM. One of CNPEM’s goals is to explore renewable source materials to produce advanced materials. There is a whole philosophy behind this, based on the depletion of natural resources, sustainability…  We have worked hard in order to make new things with materials derived from biomass, and the main focus is cellulose. It is the most abundant polymer in the world, but it is very hard to work with it. You cannot process cellulose as you process polyethylene, for example.  One of our goals has been to find ways to laminate cellulose, i.e., work it as closely as possible to the way we use to work synthetic polymers. A recent outcome, built upon this idea, is that we managed to produce cellulose adhesives having it as the only polymer, which is new. A patent application was entered in the beginning of the year, and we are submitting a paper on it, while aiming to work with companies that are interested in the subject. We are already discussing a project for a specific application of this modified cellulose with a company.

This is the latest case. In the middle of the way, many other projects were conducted with companies, for issues of their interest. Coating something, gluing another, modifying a polymer to achieve a certain result. But these were answers to demands from companies, instead of researches started at the laboratory.

SBPMat Newsletter: – Leave a message for our readers who are starting their careers as scientists.

Fernando Galembeck: – First of all, in any chosen career, there must be a dose of passion. It does not matter if you are going to work in the Stock Market, Healthcare or whatever you may do; above all, your taste must decide. If a person chooses a career because it will give them money or status… I think it is a bad choice. If you do things with pleasure, with interest, the money, prestige and status will come from other paths. The goal is to do what makes you happy, what makes you feel good when you do it, what makes you feel accomplished. It is true not only for the scientific career, but also to any other career. In science, it is crucial.

Another point is that you must be prepared to work hard. There is no easy way. I know some young people who are constantly seeking the great idea that will bring them success with relatively little work. Well, I’d better not count on it. It may even happen, but waiting for it is almost the same as wait to win the Lottery and get rich.

I’m over 70, therefore I have met many people and seen many things happen. Something that strikes me is how young people who seemed very promising end up not working very well.  Frankly, I think it is bad for youngsters to achieve success too early, because I have the impression they get used to this idea that things will always work out fine. And the problem is that there isn’t anything, anyone, any company that will always work. There will always be the moment of failure, the moment of frustration. If the person is prepared for that, when the times come, he or she will overcome it, while others are crushed – they cannot move one. That is why we must be careful not to be deceived by our success and think that, because it worked once, it will always work. You must be prepared to fight.

When I was in college, thinking about doing research seemed a very strange thing to do, crazy talk. People did not know very well what it was, or why would someone choose to do it. Some people said that research was something like priesthood. I have always worked with research, associated with teaching, consulting and, without having ever sought to become rich, I managed to have an economic status that I deem very comfortable. But I insist, my goal was to enable the development, to produce material, not the money I would receive. Money came, as it does. So, I suggest you to focus on your work, on the results and the contribution that said work may give to other people, to the environment, to the community, to the country, to knowledge. The rest comes as a bonus.

In short, my message is: work seriously, earnestly and passionately.

Finally, I would like to point out that I think the research work, the development work, really helps you to grow as a person. It will depart you from ideas that are not very fruitful and guide you towards attitudes that are really important and helpful. A student asked Galileo once: “Master, what is the method?”, and Galileo’s answer was: “The method is the doubt”. I think it is very important in the research activity, which, for Materials in particular, is especially interesting because the final product is something you can hold in your hands. In the research activity you have to always wonder, “I’m thinking like this, but is this right?”, or “This guy wrote this, but what are his bases to write it?”. This attitude is very different from the dogmatic one, which is common in the realms of politics and religion, and very different from the attitude of someone who has to deceive, as the lawyer who works for a mobster or drug dealer. The researchers have to commit themselves to the truth. Of course there are also people who call themselves researchers and spread disinformation.  Some years ago, people were talking about something called “Bush science”, an expression referring to President Bush. This Bush science was the arguments fabricated by people who gained money as scientists, but who produced arguments to sustain Bush’s policies. In other words, the problem exists in science as well, but then we get back to what I said earlier. You cannot enter this field because of money, or to achieve prestige, or to be invited to have dinner with the president; you must enter this field because of your interest in the subject itself.

SBPMat newsletter. English edition. Year 2, issue 2.

 

Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat) newsletter

News update from Brazil for the Materials community

 

English edition. Year 2, issue 2. 

SBPMat news: XIV Meeting - Rio de Janeiro, 9/27 a 10/1 de 2015 

Simposia and abstract submission: 27 simposia and 2 workshops (the biggest number in the records of our annual meetings) compose the XIV SBPMat Meeting.

Until May 30th, you may submit abstracts to present your work in the symposia or workshops of the event. 

Know more.

Sponsors and exhibitors: 20 companies have already booked their place in the XIV SBPMat Meeting. Contact for exhibitors and other sponsors: rose@metallum.com.br.

Go to the event website.

SBPMat news: University Chapters

Two more points in the map of the university chapters of SBPMat: at UNESP campus Presidente Prudente and at UNESP campus Ilha Solteira. Eight units have already been created in South, Southeast, Northeast, and North regions of Brazil since the launching of the program in the beginning of 2014. Learn more on the new university chapters.

Featured paper 

A team from federal universities of the Northeast region of Brazil developed a random laser emitting ultraviolet light using zinc oxide powder which particles worked as light scatterers. The scientists proved that the emission was induced by the mechanism of “3 photons absortion”.  The work, which results were recently published on Nanoscale, opens possibilities for applications in several areas, especially medicine. Learn more.

SBPMat' s community people

Over 30 years of scientific work, Helio Chacham made relevant contributions to the area of Materials. Initially, he dedicated to the theoretical investigation of materials under ultra-high pressure. Since middle 1990, frequently cooperating with experimental groups, he has studied nanomaterials, especially 2D materials. In an interview to SBPMat newsletter, Professor Chacham talked about his main contributions in such themes.  In addition, he told a little about his childhood and adolescence in Belo Horizonte, among other subjects. See our interview with this scientist.

History of Materials research in Brazil

We present the second part of the story on the history of the Synchrotron Light Brazilian National Laboratory (LNLS). Between 1986 and 1997, in Campinas city in São Paulo state, a team of scientists and other collaborators designed, constructed, and tested the source of synchrotron light and the instruments of the beamlines of the laboratory. For such, the team worked successively in a room at the university, in a house, and in an industrial hangar, before getting installed in the definitive campus of LNLS. We report a brief chronology of such epic and share statements of some of its leaders. See it.

Reading tips
International science stories on highlighted papers. 

  • New strategy of materials engineering to obtain lighter, safer and more durable lithium-ion batteries (Advanced Functional Materials). Here.
  • Thin films of complex oxides integrated to ferroelectric crystals: potential for information storage (Advanced Functional Materials). Here.
  • Scientists are able to dispose organic molecules within nanotubes and, from such, demonstrate application for a faster Internet (Nature Nanotechnology). Here.
  • New method allows growing molybdenum disulfide flakes with accuracy in specific locations (Nature Communications). Here.

News from Brazilian National Institutes of Science and Technology (INCTs) and Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (CEPIDs).

  • In the context of a collaboration between CeRTEV (CEPID in vitreous materials) and the International Materials Institute for New Functionality in Glass, Professor Edgar Zanotto will administer a remote class on vitreous ceramic materials to an international group. Here.
Events
  • 4th School of SAXS Data Analysis. Campinas, SP (Brazil). May, 11 to 15, 2015. Site.
  • São Paulo School of Advanced Sciences (ESPCA) on Recent Developments in Synchrotron Radiation. Campinas, SP (Brazil). July, 13 to 24, 2015. Site.
  • Advanced School on Glasses and Glass-Ceramics (G&GC São Carlos). São Carlos, SP (Brazil). August, 1 to 9, 2015. Site.
  • Primeira Conferência de Materiais Celulares (MATCEL 2015). Aveiro (Portugal). September, 7 to 8, 2015. Site.
  • XIV Encontro da SBPMat. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). September 27 to October 1, 2015. Site.
  • 13th International Conference on Plasma Based Ion Implantation & Deposition (PBII&D 2015). Buenos Aires (Argentina). October, 5 to 9, 2015. Site.
  • 10th Ibero-American Workshop on Complex Fluids 2015. Florianópolis, SC (Brazil). October, 25 to 29, 2015. Site.
To suggest news, opportunities, events, papers, interviewees or reading recommendations items for inclusion in our newsletter, write to comunicacao@sbpmat.org.br.

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Abstract submission is open for the 27 symposia and 2 workshops of the XIV SBPMat Meeting.

The submission of abstracts regarding the XIV Meeting of the Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat) is open until May 30th. The event will be held from September 27th to October 1st in Rio de Janeiro at the convention center SulAmérica.

Works of researchers and students from Brazil and abroad in the areas of the symposia can be submitted. In this edition of the annual meeting of SBPMat, the number of symposia exceeded all the previous ones: 27 symposia and 2 workshops.

The symposia were selected by the organizing committee among the proposals received in a call launched in November 2014. According to the chairmen of the event, Marco Cremona and Fernando Lázaro Freire Junior, there were more than 50 proposals of symposia for this edition. Thus, it was impossible to put up all of them due to the limitations of time and physical space at the convention center. To select the symposia, the committee considered frontier research topics having an active community in the country.

In addition to a diverse range of themes (nanomaterials, electronics and photonics, biomaterials, modeling, materials for energy, among others), the list of symposia includes a symposium organized by the SBPMat University Chapters, coordinated by students, and two workshops organized in cooperation with industries. The list of symposia coordinators is also diverse, including researchers of universities and other research institutions from South, Southeast, and Northeast Brazilian regions, and from abroad (Argentina, Denmark, England, Germany,  Italy, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and USA).

About SBPMat meetings

The annual SBPMat meeting is a traditional international forum dedicated to the recent progresses and perspectives in Materials science and technology. In addition to the presentation of technical works that occur in the symposia, the scientific program of the event counts on plenary lectures given by renowned researchers from worldwide. In the edition of 2014, held in the city of João Pessoa, around 2,000 works were presented in 19 symposia.

List of symposia and workshops: http://sbpmat.org.br/14encontro/symposia/?lang=en#title

History the Brazilian Synchrotron Light National Laboratory. Part 1: The dream of a big research machine in Brazil and the first steps toward the construction of the laboratory.

This photo of LNLS shows the main accelerator and the beamlines. Credits: Julio Fujikawa / Divulgação LNLS.

Since 1997, at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light National Laboratory (LNLS), in the city of Campinas, in São Paulo state, electrons accelerated at a speed very close to the light speed and compressed in a beam of the thickness of a strand of hair travel a 93-meter-long polygon, called “storage ring”, generating a type of radiation of unique brightness with important applications in the study of organic and inorganic matter, the synchrotron light.

In several points around the ring, scientists, mainly from academia but also from industry simultaneously work in several small laboratories, known as “experimental stations” or “beamlines’, which scientific instruments use the beams generated by the synchrotron light source after having been filtered by monochromators. Thanks to such filters, each experiment receives the type of radiation of the electromagnetic spectrum it needs, from infrared up to X-rays.

Still today, the synchrotron light source of LNLS is the single one in Latin America. Since the opening of the laboratory, the use of the experimental stations is free and open to the international scientific community. The candidates submit their research projects to a committee composed by members of the scientific community, which sends them to peer review. The accepted proposals get a room in the busy agenda of LNLS, during the day or at night. In the last few years, the laboratory has benefited around 1,500 researchers a year, original from Brazil (the majority), from Argentina (approximately 17%) and, in smaller proportions, from other countries.

The LNLS research resources are used in works of the most varied knowledge areas, such as Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Environmental Sciences, Geo-sciences and, especially, Material Science and Engineering. “For an expressive number of researches of such area in Brazil, the LNLS beamlines are some of the main measurement instruments in their research programs”, says Harry Westfahl Jr., scientific director of LNLS from March, 2013.

According to Aldo Felix Craievich, a scientist that had an important participation throughout the creation process of LNLS and was its first scientific director, one of the purposes of the laboratory, since the beginning, was to offer to the researchers on Material Science and Engineering a unique and good quality experimental infrastructure. “The operation of LNLS during 17 years already allowed many Material scientists and engineers to perform research in the beamlines in very favorable conditions. And most of these studies would be impossible to perform in classic laboratories”, completes he.  In fact, the high intensity and other unique characteristics of synchrotron light allow to study the materials in a more detailed manner that the radiation that may be produced by sources found in the laboratories of the universities. “Today, a large fraction of materials are in fact nanomaterials and, in such context, the best X-ray tubes can´t compete with synchrotron radiation”, affirms Yves Petroff, French physicist that directed centers of synchrotron light in Europe and was the scientific director of LNLS from November, 2009 to March, 2013.

Having experimental techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), X-ray absorption (EXAFS, XANES), photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), VUV spectroscopy and microtomography, the beamlines at LNLS allow a broad and deep study of the structure and properties of the materials. “The researchers bring to LNLS the materials created in their laboratories, such as, for example, more resistant plastics, more efficient catalysts, or metals with unusual electronic and magnetic properties, to understand at microscopic level the manifestation of such innovative properties, or even to guide new synthesis paths”, exemplifies Harry Westfahl Jr.

According to Aldo Craievich, the contribution of LNLS to the development of Material Science is proven by the quantity and quantity of articles published in high-impact journals based on experimental studies performed in the laboratory. As an example, Craievich comments that, in the three-year period 2006-2008, out of a total of 547 papers generated from works developed at LNLS, which can be seen in the LNLS annual reports, 211 were published in journals of the area of Material Science, number that increases when adding the publications on Chemistry and Physics that deal with basic aspects of the properties of solid materials.

However, the contribution of LNLS to the scientific and technological development of Brazil has started before the laboratory got open to the scientific community. The process of creation and implementation of LNLS as a National Laboratory was a rich experience to its players, and an interesting history to know, especially because the greatest part of synchrotron light sources and of the light lines was designed and manufactured in the country.

LNLS Origin: the beginning

The wish to have in Brazil a great particle accelerator is as old as the community of physicists in the country. One of the first attempts of installing a machine of such type occurred early in the 1950’s and was characterized because it was a proposal of construction, instead of purchase. The military and scientist Admiral Álvaro Alberto de Motta e Silva, who had led the recent creation of the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and was at that time the president of the institution, saw in the University of Chicago a particle accelerator of synchrocyclotron type, and returned to Brazil with the proposal of manufacturing a small equipment of such type in Rio de Janeiro, at Brazilian Center for Research in Physics (CBPF), to train technicians and scientists of the country that subsequently would be able to manufacture a bigger machine. The project started in 1952. In 1960, the small synchrocyclotron worked for the first time, but, by several reasons, it has never been fully operational.

With the end of the hardest period of Brazilian Dictatorship, in which many scientists left the country, the issue of the big scientific machine was resumed and, in 1981, the president of CNPq, Lynaldo C. Albuquerque, called the scientific community to prepare proposals of big research machines to implement in Brazil. As a response, the first discussions on the construction of a synchrotron light source occurred in CBPF. At the end of the year, the proposal was presented by Roberto Lobo, director of CBPF, to the president of CNPq. In 1982, both scientists visited the French national laboratory of synchrotron light LURE, at Université Paris-Sud, where Aldo Craievich was taking a post-doctoral internship and acquiring valuable experience in applications of such radiation.

“Since the beginning, the small group of people that participated in such discussions noticed that, to move forward such great, high-complexity, and high-cost project, it was required to reach a consensus in the Brazilian scientific community, and attract a reasonable number of potential interested users”, comments Craievich. In the scientist’s memories, the first public presentation of the preliminary ideas occurred in the Brazilian National Meeting of Condensed Matter Physics held in the city of Cambuquira, in April, 1982. “In the occasion, it was observed a certain resistance of the scientific community upon being informed  of the high cost of the project, due to the fear that this could affect the funding of other projects in progress”, tells Craievich.

Even though, Lobo, Craievich, and some more researchers of CBPF prepared a first formal document aiming at the implementation of a new synchrotron light source in Brazil (“Preliminary proposal of the feasibility study for the implementation of a national laboratory of synchrotron radiation“), which was approved in 1983 by CNPq. CNPq created, then, the Synchrotronic Radiation Project (PRS), coordinated by Roberto Lobo, and engaged in allocating money to form human resources to develop the project and train future users. Also in 1983, in October, CNPq established the PRS executive committee, which was coordinated by Aldo Craievich (CBPF) and counted on more seven participants linked to CBPF, UFRJ, UNICAMP, and USP. Among them was Ricardo Rodrigues, who, some years latter, would be appointed technical director of the construction of the laboratory. To promote a greater disclosure and discussion of the project and the formation of future users, it was held, in August, 1983, at CBPF, the Meeting on Techniques and Applications of Synchrotron Radiation, with the participation of 220 scientists. Also with the purpose of forming new human resources, in early 1984, PRS launched a call offering CNPq’s scholarships for researchers and undergraduate, master´s and PhD students, on themes related to the construction of the source and beamlines and their applications.

Two more newness marked the year of 1984 in the history of LNLS. PRS passed to count on a technical-scientific committee (CTC), chaired by Roberto Lobo (USP), and formed by a dozen of scientists linked to CBPF, IPT, PUCRio, UNICAMP, and USP, including Cylon Gonçalves da Silva, who would become the first director of the laboratory in 1986, and would lead its effective implementation. Additionally, in December, 1984, CNPq took one more step toward the construction of the synchrotron light source upon creating the figure of the National Laboratory of Synchrotron Radiation (LNRS), with Roberto Lobo as pro tempore director, and still without a place assigned to its headquarters.

Right after the creation of LNRS, CNPq called the scientific community to propose places for the construction of the laboratory. From the four proposals – Rio de Janeiro, Niteroi, Campinas, and São Carlos – CNPq president, in one of the last resolutions of his tenure, a little before the end of military government, in February, 1985, chose Campinas as the future headquarters of LNRS.

In the next edition of SBPMat newsletter, don’t miss the article on the second part of this history – the phase of the construction of the laboratory.

Featured paper: Phonons coupled to magnetic order in the origin of ferroelectricity.

Paper:  Spin-phonon and magnetostriction phenomena in CaMn7O12 helimagnet probed by Raman spectroscopy. Nonato, A.; Araujo, B.S.; Ayala, AP; Maciel, AP; Yanez-Vilar, S.; Sanchez-Andujar, M.; Senaris-Rodriguez, MA; Paschoal, CWA. Applied Physics Letters 105, 222902 (2014); DOI: 10.1063/1.4902234.

Through a study based, mainly, on the technique of Raman spectroscopy, resarchers from Brazil, in collaboration with scientists from Spain, progressed in the understanding of the mechanisms involved in the generation of magnetically induced ferroelectricity (electric polarization that occurs in some materials with spiral magnetic order, even when they are not under the action of electric fields) in the CMO compound.

CMO, which formula is CaMn7O12, is a ceramic oxide of perovskite structure that presents, simultaneously, at low temperatures, ferroelectricity and anti-ferromagnetism.

In addition to contribute to the advance of fundamental science, the work, which results were recently published in Applied Physics Letters (APL) journal, opens possibilities to the creation of new materials which polarization may be controlled through magnetic fields. Such materials could be applied, for example, in new spintronic devices for data storage, faster and that consume less energy.

The study was performed during Ariel Nonato Almeida de Abreu Silva’s PhD research work, advised by Carlos William de Araujo Paschoal, Professor at the Physics department of the Brazilian Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA), where he leads a research group in dielectric and vibrational properties. “The idea arose out of the search for multiferroic and magnetoelectric materials that allow for a control of the electric polarization upon replacements”, says professor Araujo Paschoal, who signs the article together with other seven researchers. According to him, CMO was chosen because it presents a rich diagram of phases (magnetic, structural, and charge order), and because it is unique in the mechanisms that generate ferroelectricity from its magnetic properties.

Among CMO’s particularities, there is a magnetic transition, which occurs at 90K (around -180°C), where the compound passes from paramagnetic phase to anti-ferromagnetic phase, inducing a giant ferroelectricity.

In the study that generated APL’s paper, Ariel and his advisor analyzed in details the Raman spectra of CMO samples at several temperatures (from 300 K to 10K) to investigate the collective vibrations of the atoms of the crystalline lattice (phonons) and their relation with magnetic order. Among other results, they were able to prove that, at 90 K, the phonons showed an unusual behavior due to the coupling to magnetic order.

“The main contribution of this work is to help in the understanding of how the phonons couple to the magnetic order in CaMn7O12(CMO). It is, with no doubt, a great step that allows us to progress in the understanding of the origin of the induced electric polarization in CMO, which is also a subject of great discussion in literature”, affirms Paschoal.

Raman spectrum of CMO at 10 K. The inset shows the ferroaxial coupling of the magnetic helix with the global rotation of the structure described by the axial vector A.

The experimental work of this study started with the synthesis of the samples, which was done at Universidad de A Coruña (Spain), where Ariel was performing a doctoral fellowship period under the supervision of Professor Maria Antonia Señaris Rodriguez. After that, at Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, a series of magnetic measures was performed. Finally, the Raman spectroscopy measures were carried out in the Laboratory of Light Scattering at the Federal University of Ceará, in cooperation with professor Alejandro Pedro Ayala, and in the Physics department of UFMA itself, in the Laboratory of Vibrational Spectroscopy and Impedance (LEVI).

The work was funded by Brazilian federal agencies (CNPq and CAPES) and state agencies (FUNCAP e FAPEMA, from Ceará and Maranhão states, respectively), and by entities from Europe.

First SBPMat University Chapter in the northern region of Brazil.

The team of the University Chapter from Belém do Pará.

The University Chapter (UC) program of the Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat) now has a unit in northern Brazil, more precisely in the city of Belém, capital of state of Pará, in the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). Seventeen undergraduate and graduate students engaged in research on Materials Science, as well as two tutors, take part in this UC.

“When we learned what the University Chapter program was, we realized that participating would provide us with a unique opportunity to have contact with other students in the field and thereby increase our exchange of experiences with pupils from other institutions which, just as us, work in Materials research”, says the president of the UC, doctoral student Gregório Barbosa Corrêa Júnior. According to him, as from this year, the UC will hold events such as workshops and courses. “We also expect to acquire a global perspective on what is our branch of scientific research and, with that, have a firm grasp of the opportunities and professional prospects offered by the field”, he concludes.

Learn more about the SBPMat University Chapters program and its six units so far, in the States of Minas Gerais, Pará, Piauí, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulohttp://sbpmat.org.br/en/university-chapters/