News

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.