News (2021)

News (2022)

Article led by former postdoc Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano published in ChemElectroChem

December 27th, 2022

As part of the special issue in honour of Prof. Hubert Girault’s 65th birthday, an article led by former postdoc Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano (now at the University of Alicante, Spain), in collaboration with Prof. José A. Manzanares (University of Valencia, Spain) and Dr. Seyed M. B. H. Ghazvini and Prof. Paul J. Low (University of Western Australia, Australia) has been published in ChemElectroChem; “Potential-modulated ion distributions in the back-to-back electrical double layers at a polarised liquid|liquid interface regulate the kinetics of interfacial electron transfer”:

https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/celc.202201042

Introducing Dr Ivan Robayo-Molina

December 5th, 2022

Huge congratulations to Ivan Robayo-Molina who successfully passed his Viva Voce examination. Sincere thanks to Prof. Nicolás Plumeré (Technical University of Munich, Germany.) for acting as External Examiner, Prof. Edmond Magner (Department of Chemical Sciences) for acting as the Internal examiner, and Prof. Erzeng Xue (Department of Chemical Sciences) for acting as the Chairperson.

AMBER Transition Year outreach event

December 2nd, 2022

PhD students Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria and Nataly Rey-Munoz and postdoctoral research Dr Andrés F. Quintero-Jaime hosted several transition year students as part of a STEM outreach activity organised by the SFI centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research (AMBER) and hosted at the University of Limerick.

5th International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE)/Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Group Irish Regional Early Career Meeting

4th November, 2022

Scanlon Electrochemistry Laboratory members participated in the 5th ISE/RSC Irish Regional Early Career Meeting in Electrochemistry at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), Northern Ireland, with 2 oral presentations in total by PhD students Nataly Rey-Munoz and Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria, and 1 poster presentation by postdoctoral researcher Dr Andrés Quintero-Jaime. Congratulations to Micheál as a co-organiser of this conference (with Dr Paul Kavanagh and Scott Place from QUB, Dr James Rohan from the Tyndall National Institute, Cork, and Dr Michelle Browne from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany), and Dr Andrés F. Quintero-Jaime and Nataly Rey-Munoz for chairing sessions.

Oral presentations:

N. Rey-Muñoz; Photoactive films of poly(3-hexylthiophene) synthesised at an electrified liquid-liquid interface.
N. Rojas Sanabria; Studying the effect of surfactants on the capacitive behaviour of PEDOT-carbon nanotubes composites.

Poster presentations:

A.F. Quintero-Jaime; Free-standing CNT@PEDOT nanocomposite thin films at a polarized liquid|liquid interface for flexible supercapacitor devices.

DUALFLOW consortium kick-off meeting in Aalto University, Finland

October 31st, 2022

Micheál travelled to Aalto University, Finland, for the DUALFLOW consortium kick-off meeting. This consortium is led by Prof. Pekka Peljo (University of Turku, Finland) and also has Prof. Kathryn Toghill (Lancaster University, U.K.) as a partner. Micheál, Pekka and Kathryn are all alumni of Prof. Hubert Girault’s group at EPFL, Switzerland, where they overlaped as postdoctoral researchers from 2011 to 2014. This consortium provides them with an extremely exciting opportunity to work together on a collaborative project once more.

Invited seminar in the Bernal Seminar Series

28th October, 2022

Micheál delivered an invited seminar as part of the Bernal Seminar Series in the Bernal Institute at UL entitled “Electropolymerisation of flexible, biocompatible and photoactive conducting polymer thin films at a polarised liquid|liquid interface for tissue engineering, supercapacitor and photovoltaic cell applications.”

Welcome to visiting professor, Prof. Michael S. Freund, to our group

October 24th, 2022

Welcome to visiting Prof. Michael S. Freund from Dalhousie University, Canada to our group for 3 weeks. During Prof. Freund’s visit we will develop polyoxometalate/conducting polymer nanocomposite thin films for supercapacitor applications.

Invited seminar at the University of Lodz, Poland

18th October, 2022

Our international collaborator Dr Grégoire Herzog (LCPME, Université de Lorraine, France) delivered an invited seminar at the University of Lodz, Poland, based on our recent publication together “Modulating the Pro-apoptotic Activity of Cytochrome c at a Biomimetic Electrified Interface” (Sci. Adv., 2021, 7, eabg4119).

242nd Electrochemical Society (ECS) Meeting

13th October, 2022

Postdoctoral researcher Dr Bren M.B. Felisilda travelled to Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A to participate in the 242nd ECS Meeting and deliver an oral presentation:

B.M.B. Felisilda; Fenton chemistry at polarized liquid-liquid interfaces for interfacial electropolymerization.

Welcome to visiting PhD student Madjid Tarabet to our group

October 3rd, 2022

Welcome to visiting PhD student Madjid Tarabet, supervised by Dr Grégoire Herzog and Dr Manuel Dossot at LCPME, Université de Lorraine, France, to our group for 2 weeks. Madjid’s visit is part of our collaborative French-Irish IEA CharmITIES project to develop in situ Raman and SERS capabilities at a polarised liquid|liquid interface.

Funding success as part of the DUALFLOW consortium

October 1st, 2022

Micheál has received funding of €518,774 as one of the funded partners in the DUALFLOW consortium. DUALFLOW is an acronym for “Dual circuit flow battery for hydrogen and value added chemical production”. The DUALFLOW project (grant no. 101070788) will run for 4 years beginning on Oct. 1st, 2022. The funding was attained through success in the Horizon Europe HORIZON-EIC-2021-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-04 “Novel routes to green hydrogen Production” call. The academic partners in the consortium are from the University of Turku and Aalto University (Finland), Lancaster University and the University of Greenwich (U.K), and Aarhus University (Denmark). The Industrial partners are Advanced Surface Plating (Denmark) and the Nordic Bioproducts Group (Finland).

Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) Electrochemistry 2022

30th September, 2022

Scanlon Electrochemistry Laboratory members travelled to Berlin, Germany, to attend GDCh Electrochemistry 2022 (https://veranstaltungen.gdch.de/tms/frontend/index.cfm?l=11179&sp_id=2) and presented 4 poster presentations in total by postdoctoral researchers Dr Andrés Quintero-Jaime and Dr Bren M.B. Felisilda, and PhD students Nataly Rey-Munoz and Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria.

Poster presentations:

N. Rojas Sanabria; PEDOT and p-ProDOT gold nanocomposite films for the determination of dopamine: synthesis at a polarised liquid|liquid interface and electrochemical performance.
A.F. Quintero-Jaime; Electrosynthesis of surfactant-free CNT@PEDOT nanocomposite thin films at a polarized liquid|liquid interface for supercapacitor applications.
N. Rey-Munoz; Study of the electrified liquid-liquid interface for the synthesis of conducting polymer films.
B.M.B. Felisilda; Interfacial electropolymerization at soft polarized interfaces using Fenton chemistry.

Online 73rd Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE)

16th September, 2022

Scanlon Electrochemistry Laboratory members participated in the Online 73rd Annual Meeting of the ISE (https://annual73.ise-online.org/) with 5 oral presentations in total by Micheál, postdoctoral researchers Dr Angelika Holzinger and Dr Bren M.B. Felisilda, and PhD students Nataly Rey-Munoz and Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria, and 1 poster presentation by postdoctoral researcher Dr Andrés Quintero-Jaime.

Oral presentations:

M.D. Scanlon; Electrosynthesis of free-standing conducting polymer thin films and their nanocomposites with gold nanoparticles or carbon nanotubes at a polarised liquid|liquid interface.
N. Rojas Sanabria; Synthesis of PEDOT-gold nanocomposite films at a liquid|liquid interface and their performance for the determination of dopamine.
N. Rey-Muñoz; Identifying the key factors that influence electropolymerisation of conducting polymers at a polarised liquid-liquid interface.
A. Holzinger; PEDOT/Au thin films synthesised at the immiscible liquid|liquid interface for sensing applications.
B.M.B. Felisilda; Electropolymerization of interfacial conducting polymer thin films using Fenton’s reagent at a polarized liquid-liquid interface.

Poster presentation:

A.F. Quintero-Jaime; Electrosynthesis of surfactant-free CNT@PEDOT nanocomposite thin films at a polarized liquid|liquid interface for supercapacitor applications.

Electrochem 2022

6th September, 2022

Scanlon Electrochemistry Laboratory members enjoyed Electrochem 2022 held in Edinburgh, Scotland (https://electrochem2022.eng.ed.ac.uk/), presenting 3 oral presentations in total by postdoctoral researchers Dr Andrés Quintero-Jaime and Dr Angelika Holzinger, and PhD student Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria, and 1 poster presentation by PhD student Nataly Rey-Munoz.

Oral presentations:

N. Rojas Sanabria; Developing PEDOT/gold composite films at a polarised liquid|liquid interface for dopamine sensing.
A.F. Quintero-Jaime; Electrosynthesis of surfactant-free CNT@PEDOT nanocomposite thin films at a polarized liquid|liquid interface for supercapacitor applications.
A. Holzinger; Electrodeless electropolymerisation of PEDOT/Au thin films at a polarised liquid|liquid interface.

Poster presentation:

N. Rey-Munoz; Identifying the key factors that influence electropolymerisation of conducting polymers at a polarised liquid-liquid Interface.

Article led by postdoc Dr Bharathi Konkena published in Small

September 5th, 2022

Article led by postdoc Dr Bharathi Konkena, in collaboration with Harneet Kaur, Ruiyuan Tian, Cian Gabbett, Mark McCrystall, Dominik Valter Horvath, Kevin Synnatschke, Ahin Roy, Ross Smith, Prof. Valeria Nicolosi and Prof. Jonathan N. Coleman (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland), has been published in Small; “Liquid processing of interfacially grown iron-oxide flowers into 2D-platelets yields lithium-ion battery anodes with capacities of twice the theoretical value”: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202203918

1st Regional Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE)

19th August, 2022

Scanlon Electrochemistry Laboratory members were very active at the 1st Regional ISE held in Prague, Czech Republic (https://regional.ise-online.org/) with 6 oral presentations in total by former postdoctoral researcher Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano, postdoctoral researchers Dr Andrés Quintero-Jaime, Dr Angelika Holzinger and Dr Bren M.B. Felisilda, and PhD students Nataly Rey-Munoz and Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria, and 1 poster presentation by Dr Angelika Holzinger.

Oral presentations:

A. Gamero-Quijano; Distinguishing the electrochemical signatures of inter- and trans-membrane c-type cytochromes at a polarised liquid|liquid Interface.
N. Rojas Sanabria; Electrosynthesis of PEDOT-gold nanocomposite films at a liquid|liquid Interface and their electrochemical performance.
A.F. Quintero-Jaime; Polarized ITIES as a platform for the electrosynthesis of CNT@PEDOT nanocomposite thin films for supercapacitors applications.
N. Rey-Munoz; Identifying the key factors that influence electropolymerisation of conducting polymers at a polarised liquid-liquid interface.
A. Holzinger; Characterisation of PEDOT/Au thin films synthesised at the immiscible liquid|liquid interface.
B.M.B. Felisilda; PEDOT thin films at polarized liquid interfaces using Fenton chemistry: formation and characterization.

Poster presentation:

A. Holzinger; Investigation on the morphology of PEDOT/Au thin films synthesised at the immiscible liquid|liquid interface.

Welcome to Dr William Cheuquepan to our group!

August 1st, 2022

A warm welcome to William who joins our group through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship!

Journées d’Electrochemie, Mons, Belgium

July 7th, 2022

Our international collaborator Dr Grégoire Herzog (LCPME, Université de Lorraine, France) presented research carried out in his group at Journées d'Electrochimie in Mons, Belgium entitled “Electrocristallisation aux interfaces liquide-liquide polarisées” We participated in this research during the visit of LCPME PhD student Magdalena Kaliszczak to our group to work with UL PhD student Nataly Rey-Munoz.

AMBER Energy Theme meeting

June 9th, 2022

Micheál, AMBER-funded PhD student Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria and AMBER-funded postdoctoral researcher Dr Andrés F. Quintero-Jaime travelled to Trinity College Dublin to attend the AMBER Energy Theme meeting for 2022. Nicolás presented his recent research results on “Electropolymerisation of metallic nanoparticle/conducting polymer nanocomposites at electrified liquid/liquid interfaces”.

Article led by Prof. Marco F. Suárez-Herrera published in Electrochimica Acta

June 9th, 2022

Article led by visiting professor Prof. Marco F. Suárez-Herrera (Universidad Nacional De Colombia, Bogota, Colombia), with co-author postdoc Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano, has been published in Electrochimica Acta; “Electrosynthesis of poly(2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole) films and their composites with gold nanoparticles at a polarised liquid|liquid interface”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013468622008362

19th European Association on Applications of Surface and Interface Analysis meeting (ECASIA 2022)

June 3rd, 2022

Scanlon Electrochemistry Laboratory members were very active at ECASIA held at the University of Limerick (https://www.ecasia2022.com/) with 5 oral presentations in total by Micheál, former postdoctoral researcher Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano, and PhD students Nataly Rey-Munoz, Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria and Kamil Cywinski. Congratulations also to Micheál for chairing a session.

M.D. Scanlon; Electrosynthesis of biocompatible conducting polymer thin films at a polarised liquid|liquid interface.
N. Rojas Sanabria; Synthesis and electrokinetic performance of PEDOT and p-ProDOT gold nanocomposite films at a polarised liquid|liquid interface for the determination of dopamine.
K. Cywinski; Self-assembled porphyrin thin films at polarised liquid|liquid interfaces for solar energy conversion.
N. Rey-Muñoz; Free-standing thin films of poly(3-hexylthiophene) synthesised at an electrified liquid-liquid interface.
A. Gamero-Quijano; Wireless interfacial electropolymerisation: a general route to conductive polymer thin films.

Travel award for former postdoc Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano to attend the travel award to the 1st Regional Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE)

May 27th, 2022

Congratulations to Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano who has been awarded a travel award by the ISE to attend the 1st Regional Meeting of the ISE in Prague, Czech Republic. Alonso will present our recent work to distinguish the electrochemical signatures of inter- and trans-membrane c-type cytochromes at a polarised liquid|liquid Interface.

Bioderived Electronics 2022, Workshop of the Israel Science Foundation

May 19th, 2022

Our collaborator Dr Damien Thompson (Bernal Institute and Department of Physics at UL) delivered an oral presentation at the Bioderived Electronics 2022 conference in Israel based on our recent publication together “Modulating the Pro-apoptotic Activity of Cytochrome c at a Biomimetic Electrified Interface” (Sci. Adv., 2021, 7, eabg4119).

Introducing Dr Rob Lehane

May 14th, 2022

Huge congratulations to Rob Lehane who successfully passed his Viva Voce examination. Sincere thanks to Prof. Robert A.W. Dryfe (University of Manchester, U.K.) for acting as External Examiner, Dr Emmet O’Reilly (Department of Chemical Sciences) for acting as the Internal examiner, and Prof. Theresa Curtin (Department of Chemical Sciences) for acting as the Chairperson.

Bernal Research Day 2022

April 26th, 2022

PhD students Rob Lehane, Nataly Rey-Munoz and Nicolás Rojas-Sanabria, as well as postdoctoral researcher Dr Angelika Holzinger, presented 4 poster presentations in total at the Bernal Research Day 2022 in the Bernal Institute at the University of Limerick.

Poster presentations:

N. Rojas Sanabria; Synthesis and electrokinetic performance of PEDOT gold nanocomposites films for determination of dopamine.
N. Rey-Munoz; Electrosynthesis of free-standing thin films of poly(3-hexylthiophene) at an electrified liquid-liquid interface.
R. Lehane; Electrosynthesis of biocompatible free-standing PEDOT thin films at an electrified liquid-liquid interface.
A. Holzinger; Investigation of the electrodeless synthesis of PEDOT/Au thin films at an immiscible liquid|liquid interface.

Furthermore, congratulations to Rob Lehane whose image “Nano-Universe at a Marco-Interface” received 3rd prize in the “Research Image Award” competition as part of the Bernal Research Day.

Article co-led by PhD student Rob A. Lehane and postdoc Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS)

March 9th, 2022

Article co-led by PhD student Rob A. Lehane and postdoc Alonso Gamero-Quijano, with co-author postdoc Dr Angelika Holzinger, and in collaboration with Sigita Malijauskaite and Prof. Kieran McGourty (Bernal Institute and Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Limerick (UL), Ireland), Dr Michele Conroy and Prof. Ursel Bangert (Bernal Institute and Department of Physics, UL, Ireland), Dr Fathima Laffir (Bernal Institute, UL, Ireland) and Dr Amit Kumar (Queens University Belfast, U.K) has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society; “Electrosynthesis of Biocompatible Free-Standing PEDOT Thin Films at a Polarized Liquid|Liquid Interface”: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c12373

Article led by postdoc Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano featured on the front cover of Chemical Communications

March 8th, 2022

Our recent work on the electrocatalytic behaviour of cytochrome c at a polarised liquid-liquid interface (Chemical Communications, 2022, 58, 3270-3273) is featured on the front cover of the current issue of Chemical Communications. Special thanks to our collaborators Dr Shayon Bhattacharya and Dr Pierre-André (Bernal Institute and Department of Physics, University of Limerick, Ireland) for producing this fantastic artwork: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2022/cc/d2cc90087d

Welcome to visiting PhD student Magdalena Kaliszczak to our group

February 28th, 2022

Welcome to visiting PhD student Magdalena Kaliszczak, supervised by Dr Grégoire Herzog at LCPME, Université de Lorraine, France, to our group for 3 weeks. Magdalena will explore the electrocrystalisation of drugs at a polarised liquid|liquid interface using interfacial tension measurements.

Article involving Micheál published in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry

February 21st, 2022

Article involving Micheál in collaboration with Dr Yang Liu (James Cook University, Australia), Reza Moshrefi and Prof. Talia Jane Stockmann (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada), and Dr William D.A. Rickard and Prof. Damien W.M. Arrigan (Curtin University, Australia) has been published in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry; “Ion-transfer electrochemistry at arrays of nanoscale interfaces between two immiscible electrolyte solutions arranged in hexagonal format”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1572665722001059

Article led by postdoc Dr Alonso Gamero-Quijano published in Chemical Communications

January 26th, 2022

Article led by postdoc Alonso Gamero-Quijano, with co-author Masters student Sarah Walsh, and in collaboration with Dr Shayon Bhattacharya, Dr Pierre-André Cazade and Prof. Damien Thompson (Bernal Institute and Department of Physics, University of Limerick, Ireland), and Dr Grégoire Herzog (LCPME, Université de Lorraine, France) has been published in Chemical Communications: "On the origin of chaotrope-modulated electrocatalytic activity of cytochrome c at electrified aqueous|organic interfaces": https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/cc/d1cc05293d

Welcome to Dr Andrés Felipe Quintero-Jaime to our group!

January 14th, 2022

A warm welcome to Andrés who joins our group through a fellowship from the Advanced Materials Research Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme (ADMIRE). This is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Action, hosted by the Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research (AMBER) Centre.