With its first publication in the year 2000, the Revista de la Societat Catalana de Química is one of the many actions this institution organizes to disseminate the past, present, and future of chemistry and other frontier fields in Catalunya. This publication is directed at chemists and PhD fellows, including the more than 800 affiliates of the association.

The 2020 edition comes, as the editors point out, despite all the complications we have all faced this past year, including the cancellation or digitalization of classes and conferences. The team managed to virtually organize the 19^th issue of this publication, loaded with the winning conferences of the Onzena Trobada de Joves Investigadors dels Països Catalans symposium, the Sant Jordi Award to best "Degree Final Project" (Treball de Fi de Grau), and more!

Inorganic nanoparticles for cancer treatment

One of the articles, “Inorganic nanoparticles for cancer diagnosis and therapy”, comes from ICMAB Researchers Carlota Ramos Casanova, Marina Llenas Martínez, Stefania Sandoval and Gerard Tobías Rossell, from the Solid State Chemistry (SSC) Group. This piece discusses some of the ways in which different inorganic nanoparticles are being studied to face cancer and specially to reduce the harm done to the body by the current methods of therapy that are highly invasive and damage healthy tissue.

This articles covers the synthesis and potential use of nanoparticles, as well as the mechanisms through which nanoparticles can target specific cells and how do they deliver the drugs. It focuses on inorganic nanoparticles complementing "Nanocàpsules polimèriques per a l’alliberament controlat de fàrmacs", another article published in the Revista de la Societat Catalana de Química that already covered organic options back in 2015.

Past, present and future of Li-ion batteries

Another article on this issue of the magazine comes from ICMAB researcher and deputy director M. Rosa Palacín, who gave a conference for the Societat Catalana de Química at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans headquarters back in 2019. The event commemorated the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in that year, awarded to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino, for the development of lithium-ion batteries. The article is a written version of this conference, and it explores how did this technology manage to hit markets in 1990 despite encountering many challenges, how it revolutionized portable electronics, and how it can help us in the future.

More information

• Read the 19th Issue of the Societat Catalana de Química Magazine
• Inorganic nanoparticles for cancer diagnosis and therapy - Carlota Ramos Casanova, Marina Llenas Martínez, Stefania Sandoval i Gerard Tobías Rossell
• Celebrating the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019. The development of Li-ion batteries: From intercalation chemistry to a rechargeable world - M. Rosa Palacín
• M. Rosa Palacín at the Christmas Conference of the SCQ-IEC about Li-ion batteries (19/12/2020)

Assets used for the cover image.