Professorship for
Inorganic Chemistry
The Supraparticle Group
Our research

In the Supraparticle Group, we design highly functional supraparticles, i.e., particles of a few µm in size that are composed of nanoparticle (and molecular) building blocks.
These complex entities are achieved via forced assembly of the (nano) building blocks, mainly by using the technique of spray-drying.
We study how structure, besides (multimaterial) composition, of such supraparticles affects the interaction among the building blocks of these entities and how this leads to unique functionalities.
We exploit these findings for designing highly innovative communicating / interactive supraparticles and multifunctional adsorber / carrier and catalyst entities.
Many different material systems are studied in the group, but a special focus is on iron oxide nanoparticle-based magnetic systems and their characterization in particularly via magnetic particle spectroscopy (MPS), a to date rather unexplored approach that we pioneer.
Find out more, here.
Transfer to real-life application is achieved together with the Fraunhofer part of our group at Fraunhofer ISC in Würzburg.
Ultimately, via smart supraparticles, we aim at contributing to sustainability.

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...