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Author: Daniel Rodríguez Urbano

AuPt nanostructures with a high hydrogen evolution reaction activity through a halide-mediated microwave assisted route

New paper in efficient hydrogen-producing catalysts

N&N group members Xuesong Zhang, Pablo Guardia and Anna Roig published a new paper in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A. It introduces a new method to create efficient hydrogen-producing catalysts using gold-platinum (AuPt) nanostructures. This research has been conducted alongside the former N&N member Miquel Torras, as well as the authors from the Catalan Institute for Energy Research (IREC) Jesús Chacón Borrero, Ren He and Andreu Cabot (the latter, also from ICREA).

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Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kanlaya Katewongsa delivers a seminar to the N&N group

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kanlaya Katewongsa visited the Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites Group from June 12 – 14. Katewongsa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Mahidol University (Thailand) and holds an adjunct role at the School of Materials Science and Innovation. She delivered a seminar on June 12 called In vitro Studies of Riboflavin Functionalized Magnetic Nanoparticles for Breast Cancer Delivery.

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Finished

  • Title: Compact ready-to-use electrochemical sensor devices for cost-effective on-site analysis of water contaminants (CONTASENS)
  • Reference: 2021 PROD 00116
  • PI: César Fernández-Sánchez (IMB-CNM-CSIC)
  • NN research team: Mabel Torrens, Martí Gich
  • Starting date: 19th October 2022
  • Finishing date: 18th April 2024
  • Funding: GENERALITAT CATALUNYA-AGAUR Programa Producto (Transferencia de Tecnología)
    Short description: Water pollution is an increasing global concern. It has strong implications in human health, aquatic ecosystems, and economic growth. Frequent and timely water monitoring are key to control contamination outbreaks but can be seldom carried out because current analytical methods require bulky costly instrumentation implemented in centralized laboratories and manipulated by highly qualified personnel. The sampling collection, stabilization and transport make the cost-per-analysis hardly affordable, especially in low-income countries.

    New analytical tools using cost-effective electrochemical methods can detect water pollutants in a faster and more user-friendly manner using compact low-power instrumentation. Despite an abundant scientific literature following this approach, the translation into a commercial product is still challenging. This is because several manual steps are needed to obtain reliable measurements, making in-field testing less convenient. In a recently patented development, our team (collaboration with Dr. César Fernández Sánchez at the Chemical Transducers Group at IMB-CSIC (http://gtq.imb-cnm.csic.es/en) has made a step-forward towards portable ready-to-use electrochemical sensors to analyze water pollutants which can be operated by non-experts, just requiring a simple addition of the sample. The potential of our technology is backed by the successful analysis of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), used as an indicator of water organic load, with a sensor prototype in an operational environment like a wastewater treatment plant.

    CONTASENS aims at increasing the TRL of our proprietary technology and accelerating the path towards commercialization of a product for the sustainable management of water and sanitation and efficient use of natural resources. 

 

  • Title: Natural polymer for the treatment of corneal pathologies (HEALTHY CORNEA)
  • Reference: 2021 PROD 00204
  • PI: Anna Roig, Justin Christopher D’Antin from the Opthalmology Center Barraquer
  • NN research team: Thomas Meslier, Anna Laromaine, NN Group and Victor Charoenrook, Gemma Julio and Professor Rafael I Barraquer, Barraquer Center
  • Starting date: 19th October 2022
  • Finishing date: 18th July 2024
  • Funding: Generalitat de Catalunya
    Short description: The main objective of HEALTHY CORNEA is the use of bacterial cellulose to treat eye pathologies. The main challenge is to reach a human study within the project timeframe. HEALTHY CORNEA team is participated by ICMAB and the Ophthalmology Center Barraquer to work hand in hand. Pau Turon, Vice-President of R&D of the B.Braun Group will act as the industrial mentor. The proposal has also been given the support of an association related to ophthalmologic diseases.

 

  • Title: Bioactive Bacterial Cellulose for Corneal Translational Medicine (CORNEAL-TRANSMED)
  • Reference: FYP2021 CORNEAL-TRANSMED
  • PI: Anna Roig, Ralph Michael (Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre)
  • NN research team: Thomas Meslier, Anna Roig
  • Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre: Justin D’Antin, Ralph Michael
  • Starting date: 16th June 2021
  • Ending date: 31st December 2023
  • Funding Agency: Frontier Interdisciplinary Projects (FIP) within the ICMAB-FUNFUTURE Severo Ochoa Programme
    Short description: Corneal damage – infections, burns, ulcerations, autoimmune diseases or physical trauma – can lead to impaired vision and even blindness. Yearly, 1.5 million new cases of corneal trauma are reported worldwide; those numbers steadily growing due to the population aging. Amniotic membrane (AM) grafts, donor-dependent and with stringent storing conditions, is the commmon clinical treatment for corneal injuries not requiring transplantacion. Tissue engineering could bypass many complications of corneal transplantation or the use of AM providing that biomechanical stability, biointegration and bioactivity of the corneal engineered tissues can be addressed. Based on the positive outcomes of previous projects, CORNEAL-TransMed aims at validating the translational medical potential of bioactive bacterial cellulose (BC) for cornea treatment.

 

  • Title: Thermoelectric and Magnetic nanomaterials for novel wireless charging technologies
  • Reference: FYP2021 ChargThem
  • PI: Pablo Guardia
  • NN research team: Roger Morales, Xuesong Zhang
  • Starting date: 16th June 2021
  • Finishing date: 31th December 2023
  • Funding: Frontier Interdisciplinary Projects (FIP) within the ICMAB-FUNFUTURE Severo Ochoa Programme
    Short description: Batteries and capacitors are key for developing long lifetime off-grid devices. When the latter are hermetically encapsulated, plug-in solutions are not available and after battery or capacitor depletion the device has to be disposed or charged by a wireless power charging solutions. Electromagnetic (EM) wireless power transfer (WPT), and in particular inductive coupling, have been widely exploited for contactless charging. However, its deployment relies on high-frequency EM waves, bulky coils, and bulky energy-storage systems. This avoids the implementation of EM WPT to applications in which micron size devices or low frequency EM fields are required. A clear example are implantable medical devices (IMDs) were EM WPT are key for avoiding device replacement. Despite the efforts devoted for developing novel WPT technologies, EM WPT are still the most exploited ones and hence the miniaturization of IMDs as well as its location inside the body are limited. Charge-TheM proposed a ground-breaking idea exploiting magnetic induced hyperthermia (MH) and thermoelectricity for novel WPT technologies. On one hand, MH is able to transform low-frequency EM waves into thermal energy. On the other hand, thermoelectric materials are able to convert temperature gradients (ΔT) into electric power. The combination of MH and TE materials for EM WPT is able to overcome the current limitations while boosting its deployment in several applications.

 

  • Title: Resynchronization of Cardiac beating using polypyrrole composites and the in vivo C. elegans platform (FIP BEAT)
  • Reference: FYP2020 BEAT
  • PI: Anna Laromaine
  • NN research team: Sumithra Srinivasan, Amanda Muñoz
  • Starting date: 1st September 2020
  • Finishing date: 31st December 2023
  • Funding: Severo Ochoa Program-ICMAB
  • Collaborators: IDIBELL, Univ Valladolid, IBEC and Zecardio
    Short description: Cardiac arrhythmia (CA) is a disorder characterized by an irregular heartbeat, caused by improper propagation of cellular impulses, and it affects 40% of people with heart problems. Under normal conditions, the heart muscles have an inherent electrical conductivity that allows a synchronized heart rhythm.BEAT will develop cardiac biomaterials to be used as adjunctive therapy to bypass cardiac arrhythmia and resynchronize the cardiac pulse.A combination of biopolymers will be used, polypyrrole (conductive biopolymer) and bacterial cellulose (biocompatible and flexible polymer), to build conductive and flexible three-dimensional composites, and the porous network will allow the absorption and release of current drugs. With this biomaterial, the electrical conduction of the myocardial tissue will be stimulated, and CA drugs will be released to help to recover from cardiac arrhythmia. Evaluation of those novel strategies will be performed in vitro in cells and in vivo in C. elegans.

 

  • Title: A novel wireless charging technology based in Thermoelectric and Magnetic nanomaterials (ChargeTheM)
  • PI: Pablo Guardia
  • NN research team: Xuesogn Zhang, Allan Lancezeux 
  • Starting date: 1st December 2021
  • Finishing date: 31st July 2023
  • Funding: Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Recerca i Universitats
    Short description: ChargeTheM project aims to explore a novel Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) technology beyond the state-of-the-art combining magnetic and Thermo Electric (TE) materials. In particular, ChargeTheM ground-breaking idea is to transform the energy of EM field radiations into voltage by combining magnetic induced hyperthermia (MH) with the TE effect. On one hand, the basic principle of MH is the conversion by magnetic materials of EM waves’ energy into heat. On the other hand, TE inorganic materials are able to produce open voltage circuits between 0.6 and 1.2 V for temperature gradients between 10 to 30 ºC. To that extent, ChargeTheM proposes exploiting the local heating provided by MH with the capability of TE materials to produce a voltage. The latter to be used to recharge batteries in encapsulated devices. This will be carried out by developing a magneto-thermoelectric nanocomposite multilayer. Compare to the WPT’s current state-of-the-art, ChargeTheM technology will provide power transfer through small reviving systems and under low-frequency EM fields. This clearly overcomes the current limitations for EM WPT allowing the development of novel micron size encapsulated Implantable Medical Devices.

 

  • Title: Millimeter-wave assisted magnetization switching in high anisotropy epitaxial ferrite films (mmWAMS)
  • Reference: 2021 LLAV 00095
  • PI: Martí Gich
  • NN research team: Ana Vila, Nico Dix, Martí Gich
  • Starting date: 12th October 2022
  • Finishing date: 11th July 2023
  • Funding: Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Recerca i Universitats
    Short description: Improving the energy efficiency of computing is mandatory for making sustainable the exponential rise of data processing and storage. A critical step to confront this challenge is developing novel, fast, low-dissipative and ultrahigh density magnetic recording media for future data centers. Magnetic materials with large coercive fields still remain the main pillar in the development of new memories, but its high anisotropy which is good for increasing the information storage capacity also make it difficult to write the information. To solve this problem one can take advantage of a well-known phenomenon: when magnetic resonances are excited in a material the external field required to reverse its magnetization decreases significantly. The aim of the project is exploring the use of this strategy in ferrimagnetic oxides with magnetic resonances in the range of millimetre waves.

 

  • Title: New neurovascular remodelling strategies for neurorepair after stroke
  • PI: Anna Rosell Vall d’Hebron Research Institute coordinator, Anna Roig PI ICMAB
  • Starting date: 1st January 2020
  • Ending date: 1st  December 2020
  • Funding Agency: Call for Expression of Interest (EoI) for Collaborative Projects on Regenerative Medicine 2019

 

  • Title: AGAUR-PROJECTE Llavor (Cornea-BC)
  • PI: Anna Roig
  • Starting date: 1st September 2020
  • Ending date: 1st  May 2021
  • Funding Agency: Generalitat de Catalunya

 

  • Title: AMPLIANDO EL ALCANCE DE APLICACIONES DE COMPUESTOS DE CELULOSA BACTERIANA (RISE-BC) 
  • PI: Anna Laromaine
  • Starting date: 1st January 2019
  • Ending date: 30th  September 2022
  • Funding Agency: Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades

 

  • Title: Synthetic nanoparticles as an innovative treatment for sepsis (SPRINT-4-SEPSIS)
  • PI: Anna Roig
  • Starting date: 1st January 2019
  • Ending date: 1st December 2021
  • Funding Agency: XIX Concurso Nacional Ayudas Fundación Ramon Areces