We are very excited to announce that the N&N researcher Martí Gich, has been awarded with a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant (CoG) for his project entitled “Ferrites-by-design for Millimeter-wave and Terahertz Technologies”(FeMiT). Martí Gich will carry out his project in the period 2019-2024 with a total of nearly 2 M€ to cover the project costs.
All the N&N members are very enthusiastic about the project and wish Marti a lot of success, congratulations!
Abstract: Iron oxides are among the major constituents of the deep Earth’s interior. Among them, the epsilon phase of Fe2O3 is one of the less studied polymorphs and there is a lack of information about its structural, electronic and magnetic transformations at extreme conditions. Here we report the precise determination of its equation of state and a deep analysis of the evolution of the polyhedral units under compression, thanks to the agreement between our experiments and ab-initio simulations. Our results indicate that this material, with remarkable magnetic properties, is stable at pressures up to 27 GPa. Above 27 GPa, a volume collapse has been observed and ascribed to a change of the local environment of the tetrahedrally coordinated iron towards an octahedral coordination, finding evidence for a different iron oxide polymorph. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06966-9
We congratulate two N&N researchers for two new publications: MartiGich for his third publication within a very short period of time and Anna Roig who is a co-author of one of the two recent publications. Both studies have been done together with other ICMAB researchers and collaborators from other institutions.
Title:Carbon–Silica Composites to Produce Highly Robust Thin-Film Electrochemical Microdevices Authors: Pengfei Niu, Laura Asturias-Arribas, Xavier Jordà, Alejandro R. Goñi, Anna Roig, Martí Gich, César Fernández-Sánchez Citation: Niu, P. et al. Carbon-Silica Composites to Produce Highly Robust Thin-Film Electrochemical Microdevices. Adv. Mater. Technol. 1700163 (2017).
Title: Piezo-generated charge mapping revealed through direct piezoelectric force microscopy Authors: A. Gomez, M. Gich, A. Carretero-Genevrier, T. Puig and X. Obradors Citation: Gomez, A., Gich, M., Carretero-Genevrier, A., Puig, T. & Obradors, X. Piezo-generated charge mapping revealed through direct piezoelectric force microscopy. Nat. Commun. 8, 1113 (2017). We strongly recommend to read the Peer Review File of this paper published in Nature communications where the exchange of opinions between the authors and the referees is shown.
On the 19th of July of 2017, the second internal call of the Frontier Interdisciplinary Projects (FIP) within the FUNMAT Severo Ochoa program was resolved with very good news for the N&N group! Two researcher from the group, Anna Roig and Martí Gich, will participate in two of the eight awarded projects:
In this week’s Group Meeting we welcomed Olatz Arriaga, an undergraduate student from the Basque Country. Olatz is studying “Nanoscience and Nanotechnology” at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and will do her Final Bachelor’s Project under the supervision of Anna Roig, working in the synthesis of gold and titanium oxide nanoparticles.
We also said goodbye to Dani Beltran and Valentin Natarov, who are leaving this week the ICMAB. Dani will continue his Master in Biomedical Engineering at UB-UPC, and Valentin will go back to Belarus to continue his Master in Chemistry at Belarusian State University.
They both gave a very nice presentation on the work they have been doing in our group, about stabilizing non-stable polymorphs in mesoporous silica, and synthesizing iron oxide and silica nanocomposites for biomedical applications, under the supervision of Martí Gich and Anna Roig.
From left to right:Pablo Fanjul (DropSens), Cesar Fernández (CNM), Martí Gich (NN Group), Carla Navarro (DropSens), Anna Roig (NN Group), Margaret McCaul (DCU)
A sensor platform to detect heavy metals has been developed within the COMMON SENSE project and presented during its final event, last Friday 27th January.
The partners that participated in the development of this sensor platform are Dublin City University (DCU), DropSens, National Center of Microelectronics (CNM-IMB) (CSIC), and the Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites Group (NN) at ICMAB (CSIC).
Highlights of the heavy metals sensor platform (photo):
Autonomous system for the detection of cadmium (Cd2+), lead (Pb2+), copper (Cu2+) and mercury (Hg2+) ions at trace level.
Modular design.
Adjustable flow control for heavy metals detection.
No pre-treatment of samples necessary.
No pre-concentraton of samples necessary. The sensor directly operates on-site and pre-concentrates the heavy metals on the surface of the electrode.
Complete mixing of the sample and buffer in a microfluidic chip.
Storage container for reagent waste designed for easy on-site maintenance.
Heavy metals sensor platform, with a TRL=7
Apart from this sensor, in which the NN Group has participated, the COMMON SENSE project has developed prototypes of other in situ next generation marine monitoring sensors:
Microplastics analyser
Underwater noise sensor
Eutrophication sensor
Autonomous pH and pCO2 sensors
Innovative temperature and pressure sensors
For more information, please visit the COMMON SENSE projectwebsite or contact the leader of the Dissemination and Knowledge Management Work Package, Cliona Ní Cheallachain (cliona@aquatt.ie).
This event will closure the COMMON SENSE project, in which the NN group has actively participated in the development of electrochemical sensors that are able to detect different heavy metals simultaneously.
Date and time:
Friday, January 27, from 9 am to 5 pm
Location:
Fundació Navegació Oceànica Barcelona (FNOB)
1 Moll de Llevant, 08039 Barcelona (View Map)
Martí Gich and Anna Roig will participate in a previous meeting on Thursday, with the project team, and on Friday on the public event.
Professionals working in the marine environment and citizens curious about the status of our oceans are invited!
The COMMON SENSE project is creating prototypes of next generation in-situ marine sensors to deliver vital information about the oceans. The project directly responds to the requirement for integrated and effective data acquisition systems by developing innovative sensors that will contribute to our understanding of how the marine environment functions. In doing so, COMMON SENSE results can support the implementation of European Union marine policies such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
As the COMMON SENSE project comes to a successful conclusion, the results will be presented at this final workshop, along with a demonstration of the novel sensors developed and tested during the project.
The COMMON SENSE sensors need less human operation and intervention than current technologies and create standardised data on eutrophication, underwater noise, heavy metals, and marine litter, with a focus on microplastics. Other important parameters considered are temperature, pressure, pH and pCO2.
Jan Grzelak obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Nanostructure Engineering at theUniversity of Warsaw (Poland). Then he started studying the Master program at the same university, also in Nanostructure Engineering. Now he is doing his second and last year of Master with an Erasmus program at the UAB, on Advanced Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.
Jan will join our N&N group atICMAB, and will be supervised by Martí Gich and Anna Laromaine. He will be working on alumina tubes with palladium nanoparticles, using bacterial cellulose as a template for the synthesis.
This work describes the detailed protocol for preparing piezoelectric macroporous epitaxial quartz films on silicon(100) substrates. This is a three-step process based on the preparation of a sol in a one-pot synthesis which is followed by the deposition of a gel film on Si(100) substrates by evaporation induced self-assembly using the dip-coating technique and ends with a thermal treatment of the material to induce the gel crystallization and the growth of the quartz film. The formation of a silica gel is based on the reaction of a tetraethyl orthosilicate and water, catalyzed by HCl, in ethanol.
However, the solution contains two additional components that are essential for preparing mesoporous epitaxial quartz films from these silica gels dip-coated on Si. Alkaline earth ions, like Sr2+act as glass melting agents that facilitate the crystallization of silica and in combination with cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) amphiphilic template form a phase separation responsible of the macroporosity of the films. The good matching between the quartz and silicon cell parameters is also essential in the stabilization of quartz over other SiO2 polymorphs and is at the origin of the epitaxial growth.
Follow-up meeting after seven months of starting the E-BCN project (Engineering Bacterial Cellulose Nanocomposites).
Two PhD students, Soledad Roigand Irene Anton, will be added to the project team. Soledad will work in structuring and patterning bacterial cellulose, and Irene in applying bacterial cellulose nanocomposites for skin regenaration.
Participants of the project include: Anna Roig, Dino Tonti, Jordi Faraudo, Anna Laromaine, Martí Gich, Anna May, Soledad Roig and Irene Anton.
