• Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility have characterized the structural, electronic and magnetic behavior of nanoparticles of a rare phase of iron oxide, the epsilon phase, under extreme pressure conditions, emulating the conditions of the interior of the Earth.
• The study, published in Nature Communications, concludes that the presence of this rare phase of iron oxide in the inner Earth is possible, and that under these conditions there is a new iron oxide phase, epsilon prime, with magnetic properties radically different from those known so far.

M. Rosa Palacín, researcher at ICMAB-CSIC and coordinator of the CARBAT project on the development of rechargeable calcium-based batteries appears in this news post in Business Insider, written by Raúl Salinas on the future batteries for electric vehicles. Read the whole text here:

• Researchers from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) have successfully demonstrated a combinatorial platform that evaluates how good an organic material is for photovoltaic applications.
• The platform method is 50 times faster and saves about 90 % of material compared to the conventional evaluation protocols.
• The study has been published in Advanced Electronic Materials, where it has been back cover, and is performed in the framework of the ERC project FOREMAT from Dr. Mariano Campoy-Quiles

On Thursday 11 October 2018, the programme "Els Matins de TV3", directed by Lídia Heredia, interviewed researcher Teresa Puig about the superconducting materials, in their section devoted to science, and presented by Daniel Arbós. The section, of more than 18 minutes long, explains what superconducting materials are, what are their main applications, and shows the levitation experiment. 

Watch here the video of the e-GAMES project, the ERC Starting Grant project awarded to Marta Mas-Torrent, explained here in plain words for everyone to understand! 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018 has been jointly awarded to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation". At ICMAB, we also work on projects related to cancer immunotherapy and we are very excited about this prize. However, the strategy followed by our researchers and by the Nobel Prize winners is somehow different. Do you want to know why?

We transcribe here the article appeared in El País (7 Sept 2018) about the future of batteries for electric vehicles, written by Francesco Rodella, who interviewed Prof. Rosa Palacín, from the ICMAB, and other experts in the field:

According to the Ranking Web of Research Centers, the ICMAB has the most visible website of all the CSIC research centers and units. In addition, the ICMAB website has raised to the 2nd position in the global ranking (in 2017 it was in the 4th place, and in 2016 in the 13th), from a total of 138. 

The radio program "Luciérnagas" interviewed José Giner from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Group (LMI) to talk about the recent paper publised in Advanced Materials on the flexible materials that switch from nano-porous 3D to 2D structures in a reversible way. Listen to the interview in this post:

• Researchers from the IBB-UAB fabricate 4 molecules of only 7 amino acids with the ability to self-assemble and rapidly and inexpensively form nanomaterials for biomedical and nanotechnological purposes.
• Four peptides were used to create one of the most resistant bionanomaterials described to date, nanocables and mini enzymes to act as a catalyst for the formation of nanomaterials.
• The study, publised in ACS Nano included the collaboration of Isabel Fuentes and Francesc Teixidor from the ICMAB-CSIC.

• These materials can have applications in selective gas separation or gas adsorption, as catalysts for chemical reactions, as encapsulation and drug delivery for active substances or hazardous waste adsorption.
• The strategy is based on the spherical shape of the boron-based linkers used as ligands.
• Look at this video, that explains the transformation:  https://youtu.be/eO9fMitBfFY

Ferran Macià, researcher at the MULFOX group at ICMAB, and at the University of Barcelona (Fundamental Physics Department) is co-author of the article "Subnanosecond magnetization dynamics driven by strain waves" published in the MRS Bulletin, the monthly Material Science publication with technical theme topics, news, reviews, and commentary. 

Teresa Puig was on November 15, 2018, on the radio! The program "La Nit Estèrica" from Terrassa Digital (95.2 FM) interviewed Teresa Puig, ICMAB researcher from Terrassa. They talked about superconducting materials and about the begining of Teresa Puig in the superconducting world, about her current projects, and many more things!

On Saturday, 17 November 2018, we participated in the "Science Tech Girls Vallès" event, in the Library Vapor Badia in Sabadell. The event was planned as a morning full of science and technology for girls between 8 and 18 years old. Boys could also participate, but it was an action to encourage the participation of girls in science. The morning started at 10 am with the dramatised reading, created and performed by ICMAB women, "Madame du Châtelet and her Instagram followers", which wants to visibilize the women scientists throughout history. 

ICMAB researchers Gervasi Herranz, Blai Casals and Rafael Cichelero, from the MULFOX group, have contributed to a study led by the group of Manuel Bibes, from Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales (France), published in Nature Physics on October 15, 2018. The study, entitled "Giant topological Hall effect in correlated oxide thin films" describes the discovery of a giant topological Hall effect arising from the topology of spatial distribution of spin textures. 

The last issue of the Revista Española de Física (RdF) of the RSEF contains five articles written by the winners of the XII edition of the Research Awards "For Women in Science" from L'Oréal-UNESCO. The Editorial Committee decided to invite them to write an article about their research for the section "Temas de Física". Mariona Coll, from the ICMAB, has written the article "Oxides and low-cost chemical methods: New perspectives for photovoltaics".

The ALBA Synchrotron has published its annual report, which covers the most remarkable activities of 2017, including scientific highlights. From the 20 highlights that appear on the report, 6 of them include the participation of ICMAB researchers. 

On Monday, 24 September, this article appeared in the printed version in the newspaper "El Periódico", both in the Spanish and Catalan version. The article is written by the journalist Valentina Raffio, and features two ICMAB researchers, Teresa Puig and Marta Mas-Torrent, in the framework of the project #LasCientíficasCuentan, an initiative by CSIC-Brussels and funded by the FECYT. We transcribe here the text. 

The project "Las Científicas Cuentan" is an initiative of the CSIC Delegation in Brussels financed by the FECYT. The aim of the project is to bring basic science to the general public, through the story of women scientists who have been awarded with a ERC project during the past years. From the ICMAB, Marta Mas-Torrent (ERC-Starting Grant) and Teresa Puig (ERC-Advanced Grant) participate in the project.

The presentation will be on Wednesday, September 19 in Barcelona with a talk by Teresa Puig on superconducting materials (7 pm).

• A recent study demonstrates the feasibility of the electrochemical extraction of calcium from a metal oxide, which could be used as a cathode (positive electrode) for calcium batteries
• The study, published in Dalton Transactions, was carried out in collaboration with Toyota Motor Europe, which shares the patent

The study published in Advanced Materials "An Unprecedented Stimuli Controlled Single-crystal Reversible Phase Transition of a Metal-Organic Framework and its Application to a Novel Method of Guest Encapsulation" was featured in UABdivulga.