News

SUSMATCHEM group’s first cover art is online at ChemSusChem. The cover is featured in the lignin special issue of the journal. Thanks to Jinrong for great work with the cover art.

Just a 30 min walk away from the campus there are plenty of forests with possibility for berry picking and hiking. We went to explore the near nature and pick some blueberries. Good times!

We are delighted to welcome Jinrong Liu and Mohammad Morsali (left and right) as the new PhD Students to the SUSMATCHEM group. Jin and Moh will be working in projects focusing on development of new types of lignin-based materials. Excited to have you both in place at MMK after months of waiting!

Invited Review Article in Materials Horizons (IF 14.4). A. Moreno and M.H. Sipponen. Lignin-based smart materials: a roadmap to processing and synthesis for current and future applications.

In this Review Article we visit a plethora of different lignin-based smart materials that are designed to respond to various stimuli and enable advanced use in sensors, drug delivery, and shape-memory materials. We also provide our perspectives for the future horizons of this rapidly developing field. See more online at: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0MH00798F

SUSMATCHEM group has obtained a research grant to develop lignin-based water resistance coatings (mainly for wood but we like the photo below). We will be recruiting a Postdoctoral Fellow for this project. Stay tuned for more information about the recruitment in autumn 2020. We are grateful for support from Södras Stiftelse för Forskning, Utveckling och Utbildning. https://www.sodra.com/sv/se/om-sodra/innovation/forskningsstiftelse/

Norna Gabring has joined the SUSMATCHEM group on June 15th for an exciting summer project to synthesize new lignin-based materials. Adrian will instruct Norna and the research is already underway in the lab. Welcome Norna!

Following a recent publication by Sipponen and co-workers from Aalto University, several websites have covered the research related to thermal energy storage in lignin-fatty acid hybrid materials.

https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Science/Research/Highlights/2020/9000th-publication-green-materials-thermal-energy-storage.html

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/mixing-industrial-byproducts-offers-greener-thermal-energy-storage/4011779.article

This sets a bright future for continued efforts to develop functional materials from lignin.

Link to the original Open Access publication: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.124711

Adrian Moreno Guerra has started as Postdoctoral Fellow in the group! (OK two weeks ago but we’ve been busy to update…)

A piece of advice to future junior faculty for the new lab start-up: get a good pair of scissors for opening a lot of boxes!