News

We transferred the good old thermite reaction into the world of supraparticles! The article was just accepted in ACS Applied Nano Materials.   Raczka T., Groppe P., Hurle K., Moritz M.S., Papp C., Mandel K., Wintzheimer S.* Thermite Reactions within Liquid Gallium/Iron Oxide Supraparticl...

We pioneer the design of magnetic supraparticles as information-providing objects that can be read-out via magnetic particle spectroscopy. The potential and the challenges from our experience are outlined in an invited article that was just accepted in Accounts of Materials Research. It nicely sums ...

Karl has been appointed by FAU President Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Hornegger to the Chair of Particle-Based Materials Chemistry (PBMC) at our Department! With Karl Mandel’s appointment to the W3 professorship in Particle-Based Materials Chemistry, the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy at FAU is als...

...on MOF nano thermometers in context of the CRC1411 (LINK) Joshi M., Riesner M., Wang Z., Mireskandari S., Nanda R., Reber R., Huber C., Fischer M., Fainblat R., Mandel K., Wisser D., Segets D.,* Bacher G.,* Wisser F.M.,* Hartmann M.* Europium(III)/Terbium(III) Mixed Metal-Organic Frameworks a...

Atomic layer deposition of Pt on supraparticles can yield highly tunable heterogeneous catalysts. Our collaborative work with many other groups at FAU and FU Berlin was now published in Chemistry of Materials. Groppe P., Müller V., Will J., Zhou X., Zhang K., Moritz M.S. , Papp C., Libuda J., Ret...

Great collaboration with our longest collaborator Klaus Müller-Buschbaum from Gießen (LINK), on a topic of anti-counterfeiting (NanoMOF-Based Multilevel Anti-Counterfeiting by a Combination of Visible and Invisible Photoluminescence and Conductivity) – just accepted in Advanced Functional Materials!...

The scientific stay of Svitlana Gryn from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv was very fruitful. Together with her colleagues in Ukraine and us, we were able to demonstrate the “Design of hierarchical TS-1 zeolites using spray-drying for enhanced catalytic activity in cyclic carbonate f...

We have another doctor! Huanhuan Zhou graduted with her topic on "Altering nanoparticle dispersion parameters for structural control of spray-dried supraparticles" - Congratulations Huanhuan!

We have another freshly baked Doctor in the group: Philipp Groppe defended his Thesis on “Spray-dried nanoporous supraparticles as adjustable support structures for catalytically active materials” with great success. Congratulations, Dr. Groppe!

As proposed in the ERC SmartRust project, it is quite a puzzle to detangle magnetic intra- and inter-supraparticle interactions. With support from Noah Kent (MIT), we made a step further on this as described in our just accepted article in Small. Wolf A., Heinlein M., Kent N., Müssig S., Mandel K...

We gained new insights into the key role of the binder material in suprabeads, i.e. supraparticles fixed on beads. This work was just accepted by ACS Applied Nano Materials. Zimmermann T., Fischer C., Oppmann M., Wenderoth S., Winzer B., Somorowsky F., Vogel N., Mandel K., Wintzheimer S.* Key Ro...

We are happy to welcome our new group member Romain. Romain Conan completed his studies at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées and Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France, with an Engineering Diploma of physics and a Master of Science degree in Nanosciences. He started his PhD at ...

We are happy to welcome our new group member Jakob. Jakob Endres completed his studies at the University of Würzburg with a Master of Science degree in Functional Materials. During his studies, he focused on investigating smart materials and novel spectroscopic methods relevant for energy technol...

ACS just accepted our recent work with colleagues from the Fraunhofer ISC and Fraunhofer IMM as an article in Chem & Bio Engineering. It describes hydrogen peroxide producing supraparticles as tailorable photocatalysts for flow chemistry reactions. Herbig B.,* Cermjani E., Hanselmann D., Schm...

Markus Heinlein completed his Master of Science degree this year in our group focusing on the relation of magnetic interactions within and between supraparticles. Continuing with his research in the Supraparticle Group, he started his PhD thesis in November 2024 and will contribute to our efforts...

We say goodbye to Juanjo, who has been our colleague for the last couple months. He stayed in the Supraparticle Group as a visiting PhD student from Argentinia to study inductively heatable molecular switches based on co-doped ferrites and catechol derivatives coordination.

In a great collaboration with the team of Alan Lyons (City University of New York) and the colleagues from the Fraunhofer ISC, we demonstrate how to contribute to enhanced self-cleaning of glass, partly coated with dagger-shaped features from silica nanoparticles. The article was just accepted in So...

Congratulations Susanne and Karma Zuraiqi (RMIT) and who pulled this together, and Torben Daeneke, Ken Chiang, Julien Bachmann and Peter Wasserscheid who are co-CI's for this grant.   This mobility grant allows researchers from Germany and Australia to engage in an exchange of ideas regar...

Congratulations to Jakob for having successfully finished his PhD. Jakob did a fantastic job: his thesis on "Supraparticle designs for micrometer-sized information providers" was graded with summa cum laude!

At the first Battery Direct Recycling Conference held in Würzburg, Sara Li Deuso gave an insight into her research on magnetic supraparticles as identifiers in single-layer lithium-ion battery pouch cells. She received an award for the best poster - including a nice t-shirt! More on the topic can...

We celebrate Bastian Fett’s successful defense of his PhD thesis entitled "Innovative material concepts for tandem solar cells”! Congratulations Basti!

And another article was just accepted where we demonstrate, together with the battery colleagues from the Fraunhofer ISC, how to mark batteries with magnetic ID supraparticles – just accepted in ChemSusChem. Deuso S., Ziegler S., Weber D., Breuer F., Haddad D., Müssig S., Flegler A., Giffin G.A.,...

Again good news come in pairs: RSC Energy & Environmental Science just accepted the work by colleagues at Fraunhofer ISC and us in which we discuss our thoughts and ideas on “the battery tug-of-war” when it comes to making the battery world more sustainable. Wolf A., Nagler F., Daubinger P., ...

Step by step we understand better how interactions among magnetic nanoparticles in supraparticle structures yield certain signal fingerprints in MPS. The latest work was just accepted by Particle and Particle Systems Characterization. Wolf A., Zhou H., Groppe P., Stiegler L.M.S., Kämäräinen T., P...

Karl had the honor to be one of 7 referees for a PhD defense in Belgium. With that honor comes the joy of dressing up in a traditional manner. See picture attached.

Our recent paper on hydrogen indicator supraparticles was featured on the cover of Advanced Materials Technologies. Find out more, here.

Advanced Functional Materials just accepted our latest work in which we describe how magnetic nano- and supraparticles can be tailored to achieve customized heating profiles upon induction heating. Luthardt L., Raczka T., Hurle K., Müssig S., Mandel K. Customizable induction heating profiles: fr...

It was a close race: At the same time as two other international research teams, we, in collaboration with the Schühle group, published the first article demonstrating the inductively heated dehydrogenation of a liquid organic hydrogen carrier! Find ou t more, here.   Schörner M., Solymos...

Andreas Wolf presented his work on magnetic supraparticles capable of recording high temperature events in from of a poster at the 22nd International Conference on Magnetism held in Bologna, Italy. The many hours going into the design of the figures of this work payed off, as he recieved the Best Po...

As science is not always discussed best in an office or laboratory, the Supraparticle Group took off for a retreat close to Pottenstein to meet our colleagues from the Particle Technology Group from the Fraunhofer ISC and to discuss science while enjoying the local hikes and Schäuffele. Many talk...

Nice collaboration and great where our magnetic particles finally end up. Tischer F., Cholew S., Groppe P., Granath T., Düsenberg B., Mandel K., Drummer D., Bück A., Peukert W., Schmidt J. Magnetic polyamide 11 powder for the powder bed fusion process by liquid-liquid phase separation and crysta...

In our latest work, we demonstrate how combining magnetic and luminescent supraparticles with a flexible polymer yields multifunctional composites for automatable induction heating with subsequent temperature verification. Reichstein J., Raczka T., Stauch C., Schug B., Müssig S., Mandel K., Mult...

Congrats to Franzi for finishing her PhD journey with a successfull defense. Her work on "Luminescent supraparticles with adjustable ID functionality" started at the Fraunhofer ISC in Würzburg in 2019. She was part of the first PhDs to set up the laboratories at FAU in 2020. We wish her good luc...

We are happy to welcome our new group member Tero. Tero Kämäräinen obtained his M.Sc. in Micro- and Nanotechnology in 2014 and D.Sc. in Bioproduct Technology in 2020 from Aalto University in Finland, during which he conducted experimental and computational work related to bio-based (nano)material...

In this new article, we present dual-gasochromic supraparticles that enable the visual detection of hazardous H2 gas and NH3 vapors via gas specific color change reactions. Moreover, this work shows the capability of synthetically tailoring the reaction environment within the solid-liquid-gas interf...

Last week we officially started the work within the ERC consolidator grant "Smart Rust" (Magnetic memory supraparticles for perceptual matter; ERC COG 101123921 – SmartRust), which will keep us busy for the next 5 years. Besides some organizational matters, plenty of brainstorming and a lab tour ...

Massive effort to publish this indepth study on how structure in supraparticles affects catalytic activity. Small just accepted our article after a long way.   Groppe P., Reichstein J., Carl S., Cuadrado Collados C., Niebuur B., Zhang K., Apeleo Zubiri B., Libuda J. Kraus K. Retzer T. Tho...

Great work lead by the Crisp Group! Dehm K., Zanetti A., Fett B., Mauritz V., Hamburger R., Langford D., Guldi D., Young E.,  Mandel K. Crisp R. Alteration of the Optoelectronic Properties of CuInS2 Quantum Dots via Colloidal Annealing In: Chrystal Growth & Design (2024), just accepted

Another article was accepted in which we report on the influence of agglomeration and with that the influence on magnetic interactions among nanoparticles with regard to the inductive heatability of magnetic nanocomposites. Raczka T., Wolf A., Reichstein J., Stauch C., Schug B., Müssig S., Mandel...

In a new article, we present the latest advances in our H2 indicator supraparticles technology. We demonstrate that their scalable, toolbox-like manufacturing via spray drying provides multiple options to customize their composition, structure, and texture for improving their detection performance. ...

In this article, we report on a facile way to produce Janus supraparticles using spray-drying. Zhou H., Prieschl J., Groppe P., Mandel K., Wintzheimer S. One-step fabrication of platelet-shaped Janus supraparticles via spray-drying In: Powder Technology (2024), just accepted

Andreas Zink was voted by the participants of the Spray-drying Symposium 2024 as one of the two winners of a poster prize - Congratulations Andi!

Great collaboration in the field of water purification using smart particles with Asya Drenkova-Tuhtan, Carsten Meyer and Heidrun Steinmetz. Find out more, here.   Drenkova-Tuhtan A., Inskeep C. S., Luthardt L., Deuso S., Ballweg T., Hanselmann D., Bealu Z., Meyer C., Schug B., Steinmetz ...

Sebastian Kolb completed his Master of Science degree in Chemistry at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2024. During his Master’s studies in the group of Prof. Mandel he focused on structure formation and energy transfer studies in supraparticles composed of dye-doped silica na...

Prof. Dr. Karl Mandel has been appointed as Vice Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC Würzburg. Find out more, here.

Measuring the exact thermal history from the inside of materials undergoing high temperature events is almost impossible. In our latest article, just accepted in Advanced Functional Materials, we present integrable magnetic supraparticles as particulate additives that are capable of recording elapse...

Asya Drenkova-Tuhtan and her team with an in-depth analysis on our phosphate adsorber / water purification materials.   Drenkova-Tuhtan A., Sihtmäe M., Uke K., Vija H., Oppmann M., Prieschl J., Mandel K., Kahru A. Assessing the ecotoxicity of various metal oxide/ hydroxide nanocomposites...

The confined space within micrometer-sized, multi-hierarchical hybrid organic-inorganic supraparticles provides an attractive microenvironment to achieve functional material properties via the synergistic interplay of nanoparticles and molecules. We just got an article accepted, in which we demonstr...

Particulate matter or fine dust is the cause of various life-threatening diseases. Our latest article, just accepted in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, describes how nature inspired our design for a regenerative find-dust-catching coating to improve air quality.   Zimmermann T., D...

A joint work between FAU, ISC and our collaborators from the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca reveals the structure of Zn loaded supraparticles and their application potential in rubbers.   Wenderoth S., Milana P., Zimmermann T., Deues M., Oppmann M., Prieschl J., Mostoni S., Scot...

Dr. Susanne Wintzheimer has received funding in the framework of the „Emerging Talents Initiative“ (FAUeti) and from Dr. Helmut and Herta Schmauser-Stiftung to conduct the research project BioSUPA. Congrats Susanne !

More and more we understand how to influence the structure and texture in spray-dried supraparticles. Our latest article, just accepted in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, describes the influence of cation concentration and valence. Zhou H., Groppe P., Zimmermann T., Wintzheimer S., ...

Our article towards a better understanding of dust accumulation an removal on surfaces, was just accepted. How to keep surfaces clean from dust accumulation is a topic which the Fraunhofer ISC is strongly engaged with.   Zimmermann T., Stauch C., Bittel L., Jüngling N., Muhamettursun M.,...

Karl received an ERC Consolidator Grant to turn matter perceptual using SmartRust. Find more information here (FAU press release) and here (ERC - European Research Council).

Our group will participate in the CRC 1411 (design of particulate products) in the second funding period, which was just granted and will start in January 2024!

On September 8-9 2023, the 10. HybridSensorNet Symposium was held at the ZEISS Innovation Hub in Karlsruhe, Germany. The focus topic of this years’ symposium was “Innovative sensors, distributed sensor systems, new technologies and application fields”. Sarah and Jakob  from The Supraparticle Grou...

Leoni Luthardt has received a doctoral scholarship from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) for her Ph.D. thesis on inductively heatable supraparticles and their application in the fields carbon capture and design for recycling. Congrats Leoni !

We are happy to welcome Valentin Müller as new PhD canditate in our group. Valentin has already conducted his masters thesis in our group and we are glad to have him for a few more years. In his PhD thesis he will work on atomic layer depositon (ALD) on supraparticles and how to make use of catalyti...

Additional to the Zerweck Award of the FAU and the H.C. Starck Tungsten price of the GDCh, Stephan Müssig has also received the Nano Innovation Award of the Center for Nanoscience in Munich for his excellent PhD thesis on the „Development of supraparticles suitable for magnetic identification tags“....

History was made when the many talented students, PhDs and Post-Docs of the Supraparticle Group and Prof. Mandel himself showed up at the Soccer ChemCup last Friday. They formed an excellent squad and none of the other nine teams of the tournament stood a chance. The victory was celebrated and the ...

Dr. Stephan Müssig received another price for outstanding research in the field of solid state chemistry and materials research during a doctoral thesis. He has received the prestigious H.C. Starck Tungsten price of the GDCh professional group material research and solid state chemistry (GDCh Fachgr...

Fitting to the core expertise of our group, article #100 highlights the potential of spray-drying in general in a Perspective that was just accepted in Advanced Materials. The work is a joined perspective where all the fantastic colleagues doing spray-drying from all over the globe were gathered tog...

Dr. Stephan Müssig (left) and Leoni Luthardt (right) from the Supraprticle Group have recieved awards for their excellent theses from the department of chemistry and pharmacy. Dr. Stephan Müssig has recieved the Zerweck-Promotionspreis for his PhD thesis titled „Development of supraparticles suitabl...

We present the emerging concept of communicating supraparticles, i.e., (sub)micrometer-sized information-providing additives. Their functional signal characteristics comprise an identification signature and stimuli recorder features. Integration of customized CSPs into materials turns them from pass...

We gain deeper insights into our hydrogen indicator supraparticles...and continue our great collaboration with the Libuda and Retzer group. Find more details, here. Kailun Zhang, Jakob Reichstein, Philipp Groppe, Simon Schötz, Nina Stockinger, Jörg Libuda, Karl Mandel, Susanne Wintzheimer*, Tanja...

The two Mandel Groups (The Supraparticle Group at FAU and the Particle technology group at Fraunhofer ISC) came together this week for a joined retreat in Würzburg. A tight shedule was completed, including guided tours through the Fraunhofer ISC and its new buildings in Würzburg, some PhD topic p...

The development of so-called suprabeads, i.e. supraparticles supported on beads, successfully demonstrated by us for supported catalytically active liquid metal solution catalysis. This great collaborative work with colleagues from the engineering department and the CRC CLINT was just accepted in M...

Nice collaboration work between the Vogel group, our FAU group and the Fraunhofer ISC. Salvatore Chiera, Melissa Ghetina, Thomas Zimmermann, Susanne Wintzheimer, Claudia Stauch, Peer Löbmann, Karl Mandel, Nicolas Vogel* Mechanical Stability of Liquid-Infused Surfaces based on Mussel-Inspired P...

The Supraparticle group has had a busy spring season in terms of conferences and talks. Just to name a few: Susanne Wintzheimer reported about SUPRABEADS for Catalysis at the 16th International Conference on Materials Chemistry in Dublin and on the 12th International Colloids Conference in Palma...

A big step towards automated nanoparticle synthesis at Fraunhofer ISC by Sofia Dembski and colleagues. Find more details here.

Magnetic particle spectroscopy offers new eyes for surface chemistry! Wonderful collaborative work with the colleagues from the engineering department just accepted in JCIS. Find out more, here.   Andreas Wolf; Andreas Zink; Lisa Stiegler; Robert Branscheid; Benjamin Apeleo Zubiri; Ste...

After three years of waiting (thanks to Corona), since our start at FAU, the inaugural lecture of Karl Mandel and Peers has finally taken place. Find more details about all the new Professors, here.

Great demonstration of analytics by our partners down to the very small scales.   Lange S., Fett B., Kabaklı Ö. S., Adner D., Kroyer T., Bogati S., Schulze P.S.C., Herbig B., Hagendorf C., Sextl G., Mandel K. Enhancement of NiOx/poly-Si Contact Performance by Insertion of an Ultrathin Me...

Multiple group members have already been busy in 2023 with giving talks. For instance, Jakob about H2 sensing at the Materials to RePowerEU in Hanau, Susanne giving an evenig lecture at the Jahrestreffen Dechema Fachgruppe Grenzflächenbestimmte Systeme und Prozesse, Andreas pitching his PhD at the B...

On Friday 31st of March, Stephan successfully defended his PhD Thesis entitled "Development of supraparticles suitable for magnetic identification tags" with distinction #summacumlaude ! Congratulations Stephan! Happy to have him staying in the group as another scientist bridging the FAU and ISC wor...

In context of the Fraunhofer-endeavour towards perovskite tandem solar cells (project MANITU), we developed an efficient route to obtain lead-free pervoskites via spray-drying. Find out more, here. Bastian Fett, Özde Şeyma Kabaklı, Camila Andrea Romero Sierra, Patricia S. C. Schulze, Songhak Y...

We continued our fruitful and great collaboration with the Libuda & Retzer Groups and conducted an indepth study on the role of the catalyst nanoparticles that are involved in our hydrogen indicator supraparticles. The work was just accepted in The Journal of Chemical Physics.

We are happy to welcome Leoni Luthardt as new PhD canditate in our group. Leoni has already conducted her masters thesis in our group and we are glad to have her for a few more years. In her PhD thesis she will work on iductively heatable nanoparticles and their versatile applications. Special focus...

While Karl Mandel was busy with some national talks, for instance at the Max Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Golm, Germany about Functional, “communicating” supraparticles via forced assembly of nano building blocks, Stephan Müssig attended the International Conference on Fine Particl...

Joining MOFs and magnetic particles always comes with fascinating new insights - nice collaboration with the group of Klaus Müller-Buschbaum. Find details, here.

Prof. Dr. Karl Mandel was appointed to the board of trustees of the Körber foundation. Find the post of the chemistry department site here.

Our group had the honor to host the 2022 Particle Based Materials symposium (PBM). Find an article about the conference on the department site here.

Our recently published work about supraparticles that can be used to identify an object even after an event of fire and be separated magnetically from the ashes was featured in an article from the FAU department site of chemistry and pharmacy. Find the full article here.

Lately, many group members have been busy with visiting exciting conferences and giving talks. Find the full list of talks here.   To name a few highlights:   Karl Mandel Spray-drying as a versatile tool to create complex and highly functional supraparticle architectures on...

Good news come in pairs. Our article Spray-dried photonic balls with a disordered/ordered hybrid structure for shear stress indication was just accepted in Small. A great collaboration with the Vogel Group. Looking forward to many more collaboration results with the Vogels in future! Find more detai...

We developed a marker particle that can be used to identify an object even after an event of fire. A clever combination of nano building blocks in a highly functional supraparticle makes the particle easily collectable even from ashes and optically identifiable afterwards. The work was was published...

In order to create highly functional supraparticles via spray-drying, a deeper understanding of achievable structures is necessary, a topic on which we just got an article accepted in the journal Particle and Particle Systems Characterization entitled “Tuning the morphology of spray-dried suprapa...

Susanne took part in the summer series "Six questions to" researchers of the Klaus Tschira Boost Fund 2022. Read the entire interview here: Susanne Wintzheimer: Feuer und Flamme für die experimentelle Wissenschaft – Klaus Tschira Stiftung (klaus-tschira-stiftung.de)

Our latest work on “Recording Temperature with Magnetic Supraparticles” published in Advanced Materials is now also featured on the FAU website and newsticker. Additionally, our article attracted great national and international media interest. (See wiley altmetrics).  

We are thrilled to run our supraparticle assembly on the latest innovation from Büchi! The company kindly provided us with their brand new digital spray-dryer S-300. The device is capable of measuring a lot of crucial parameters in real-time and provides SI-unit-based adjustment of all settings. Mor...

We had the pleasure to host Sara E. Skrabalak from the Indiana University and Editor in Chief of Chemistry of Materials and ACS Materials Letters for a talk in our group, telling about her groups work and the interesting job as an editor in chief.

Two of our group members have the honor to be invited to the 71st Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Congrats to Susanne Wintzheimer and Jakob Reichstein, have an inspiring stay!

The department of chemistry and pharmacy of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg just published an article about our latest paper Recording Temperature with Magnetic Supraparticles, which made it to Advanced Materials. Check it out here.

We are happy to welcome Sara Li as new PhD c anditate in our group. Sara Li has already conducted her masters thesis in our group and we are glad to have her for a few more years. In her thesis she will focus on particulate markers whose magnetic signal is read out using a sensitive and fast measuri...

Magnetic particle spectroscopy is capable of giving interesting insights into nanoplastic removal with magnetic nanoparticles!

Together with many Fraunhofer colleagues on innovative perovskite solar cell materials:   Songhak Yoon*, Bastian Fett, Alexander Frebel, Sina Kroisl, Bettina Herbig, Marc Widenmeyer, Benjamin Balke, Gerhard Sextl, Karl Mandel, Anke Weidenkaff* Sb-substituted Cs2AgBiBr6 – as much as it ...

The prestigious journal Advanced Materials has just accepted our work on on “Recording Temperature with Magnetic Supraparticles”! Find out more, here.

We are happy to welcome Andreas Zink as new PhD canditate in our group. Andi has already conducted his masters thesis in our group and we are glad to have him for a few more years. In his thesis he will combine inorganic nanoparticle building blocks with organic chemistry in supraprticles to investi...

Dr. Susanne Wintzheimer has been selected as Klaus Tschira Boost Fund Fellow. Congratulations Susanne! Find out more in the news post by the department, here. 

Our latest work on Supraparticles for Bare-Eye H2 Indication and Monitoring, published in Advanced Functional Materials, has attracted great national and international media interest, including a citation in wikipedia. Here is a summary of articles reporting on our work:  

And another article is about to be published: together with our Fraunhofer colleagues, we just got accepted: Stefan Lange, Bastian Fett, Angelika Hähnel, Alexander Müller, Bettina Herbig, Volker Naumann, Gerhard Sextl, Karl Mandel, Christian Hagendorf* Thin film formation of wet chemically depos...

In our latest work, accepted by Nano letters, we report on supraparticles with a unique ID that can report damage on a surface – our particles start to be really smart 🙂 Find out more, here.

Imagine a surface that can report on damage via a color change. Supraparticles can provide this functionality as we demonstrate in our latest article published in Small. Find out more, here.

In a huge collaboration work involving several groups at FAU, we were able to develop and to mechanistically understand a functional supraparticle to make hydrogen visible for bare eye detection. Read more on this, here.

So far, we succeeded in making particles that carry a unique optical or a unique magnetic ID. In our latest work, we demonstrate that also a combination of an optical ID and a magnetic ID within a single particle can be achieved! Find out more, here.

Last year, we demonstrated that a single supraparticle can carry a unique optical ID. This year, we demonstrate that it is even possible in an all optical system to overlay a second ID and hide a first one and reveal both! Just accepted in Advanced Optical Materials. Read more, here.

Citric acid modification of iron oxide nanoparticles is often conducted but rarely closely looked at. We shed light on this in our latest article just accepted in Particle, entitled “The Significant Influence of the pH Value on Citrate Coordination upon Modification of Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide N...

With spray-drying, one can not only join nanoparticles, but also do chemistry in a droplet and crystallize MOFs from molecular precursors in presence of magnetic nanoparticles. The result is a strongly luminescent magnet! More details, here.

Small methods just accepted our collaboration work with the Bachmann group  and the Thommes group at FAU: “Spray-drying and Atomic Layer Deposition: Complementary Tools Towards Fully Orthogonal Control of Bulk Composition and Surface Identity of Multifunctional Supraparticles”. Find out more, here.

Andreas has recieved a doctoral scholarship from the Cusanuswerk for his Ph.D. thesis on Interactive magnetic supraparticles in dynamic fluidic environments and their application in water purification and battery recycling processes.

The group is constantly growing at both places (Erlangen and Würzburg). Find both images here.

We just got funded a new BMBF project aiming towards contributing to battery recycling. Find out more in the press release by the FAU here. 

Our magnetic markers are outlined in an article in “Nachrichten aus der Chemie”   Stephan Müssig, Karl Mandel Magnetische Marker Nachrichten aus der Chemie 2021, 69, 10, 45-48.  

Jakob Reichstein was just awarded with a best oral presentation diploma in the section Nanochemistry and Nanomaterials of the Mendeleev conference 2021 held in St. Petersburg, where several members of our group took part remotely and gave talks.  

We co-authored a paper with the Fraunhofer ISC which reports that abrasive blasting of lithium metal surfaces yields clean and 3D structured lithium metal anodes with superior properties for batteries. The article just got accepted by Energy Technologies and can be found here.

Our article Overcoming the Inhibition Effects of Citrate: Precipitation of Ferromagnetic Magnetite Nanoparticles with Tunable Morphology, Magnetic Properties and Surface Charge via Ferrous Citrate Oxidation is featured as back cover in Particle & Particle Systems Characterization.

Our article Communicating Particles: Identification Taggant and Temperature Recorder in One Single Supraparticle is featured as frontispiece in Advanced Functional Materials.

Our recent article about a single magnetic particle with nearly unlimited encoding options was featured as an inside back cover of Small. You can find the article here.

Advanced Functional Materials just accepted our work, in which we demonstrate for the first time the successful design of a true communicating particle which not only carries a unique ID but also a recorder functionality all in one entity. The full title is: “Communicating Particles: Identification ...

Citrates are very often used to surface-functionalize iron oxide nanoparticles after their synthesis. However, they are not employed directly during synthesis as it is commonly observed that they inhibit the precipitation of the iron species. In our latest paper, which was just accepted by Particle ...

We managed to create a single magnetic particle with over 77 billion encoding options. A breakthrough towards an all magnetic ID! The work can be found here.

Agglomeration of magnetic nanoparticles in dispersion cannot only be controlled upon temperature change but this can also be measured in situ via magnetic particle spectroscopy! More detailed infromation can be found here. Great collaboration with the group of Tobias Kraus and the Fraunhofer IIS . ...

Spray-drying nanoparticles is not only interesting to create supraparticles. It is also a way to generate solid-filled aerosols. The process is a model to what happens when humans cough or sneeze virus particles such as SARS-CoV-2. Using harmless fluorescent silica-based virus analogues, it can easi...

Our artwork regarding our latest review article "Supraparticles for Sustainability" published in Advanced Functional Materials was chosen as frontispiece art.

we are pleased to welcome Andreas Wolf, a familiar face, to our group as a PhD candidate. His work will focus on interactive magnetic supraparticles, where magnetic markers are used to monitor the separation of battery active materials and additives. Welcome Andreas!

We are delighted to share that Dr. Rosa Pujales-Paradela, member of our group, has been recognized with the Outstanding Merit Doctoral Award for her thesis "Innovative Smart Probes for Molecular Imaging Applications" by the 2018-2019 Doctoral Awards Tribunal of the consortium Physics and Chemistry p...

We are happy to welcome a new member to our working group. From now on Thomas Zimmermann will be conducting his PhD at the Particle Technology Group at the Fraunhofer ISC in Würzburg. Welcome, Thomas.

The manuscript of Andreas Wolf (Fraunhofer ISC part of the group and in future also in our group at FAU) et al. on centrifugation based separation of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and carbon black for lithium-ion battery recycling  was just accepted in Chemical Engineering and Processing - Process In...

The New Year 2021 starts with acceptance in Advanced Functional Materials of our new Review Article on "Supraparticles for Sustainability". In this Review Article, our group outlined the power of supraparticles to contribute to sustainability - including a definition of sustainability derived from ...

Just accepted for publication: Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) from the Beuerle Group meet magnetic particles:   Roberto Sanchez Naya, Vladimir Stepanenko, Karl Mandel, Florian Beuerle* Modulation of Crystallinity and Optical Properties in Composite Materials Combining Iron Oxide Nano...

By using only simple chemicals along with carefully controlling synthesis parameters, a whole zoo of different magnetic iron oxide particle types can be obtained as demonstrated by Tim Granath et. al. in our work that was just accepted by Particle and Particle Systems Characterization, entitled Oxid...

Everyone knows barcodes to store information and scratchcards to hide information. In our latest work, just accepted in Advanced Optical Materials, Franziska Miller et al. transfer these well-known principles to the supraparticle world to generate a supraparticle-based five-level-identification tag ...

Our research on „the  all white magnet” was selected as cover in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C.

Our research on abrasion indicator supraparticles is highlighted as cover in Advanced Photonics Research.

Group photo of the year 2020 – due to Corona safety measures this year via zoom screenshot.

We are happy to welcome Huanhuan Zhou, who has taken the long journey from China to support us in our scientific work as PhD student from now on. Her work will focus on the development of ID and recorder supraparticles. Welcome, Huanhuan.

Magnetic materials are always black! Really? Not necessarily: together with the group of Klaus Müller-Buschbaum we demonstrate that it is possible to design an all white magnet, based on a complex supraparticle. Read about it in J. Mater. Chem. C where our article was just accepted (https://pubs.rsc...

Congratulations to Sarah, Tim, Johannes and Susanne: Their article on "Abrasion indicators for smart surfaces based on a luminescence turn-on effect in supraparticles" was just accepted in the new journal of Wiley`s "Advanced" series: Advanced Phontonics Research! Please have a look:  https://on...

We are happy to welcome a new member to our working group. From now on Philipp Groppe will support us in our scientific work as PhD student. His work will focus on the development of porous supraparticles via spray-drying. Welcome, Philipp.  

Franziska was accepted as a participant in the FAU mentoring programme ARIADNETechNat, which is designed for high potential female postdoctoral researchers, doctoral candidates and Masters’s students at the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Sciences. Mentoring by an experienced and independe...

Max Buchner Research Foundation founded by DECHEMA awarded one of this year’s scholarships to Susanne for the project “Creation of Janus particles via spray-drying” running from 01.07.2020 until 30.06.2021. Furthermore Susanne is one of the year 2020 scholarship-holders of Christiane Nüsslein-Volhar...

Jakob  received a doctoral scholarship from The German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) for his planed PhD work where he tries to develop recorder supraparticles for monitoring harmful environmental triggers as a key component for a more sustainable circular economy also for complex products l...

We are happy to welcome a new member to our working group. From now on Dr. Rosa Pujales-Paradela will support us in our scientific work as postdoc. Welcome, Rosa.

We are pleased to announce that our new spray-dryer, friendly provided by Büchi, is now fully up and running.  

We have arrived safe and sound in beautiful Erlangen and are looking forward to an exciting time with new challenges at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. However before we can continue with our research we will first set up the lab.

Prof. Dr. Karl Mandel new at the department of chemistry and pharmacy FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg.