In this study, we investigated the behaviour of refilled polymer-stabilised liquid crystals. The polymer network is fabricated by introducing a bifunctional monomer into a nematic or chiral liquid crystal. Polymer networks formed through photo-polymerisation in a thermotropic liquid crystal will follow the self-organised order of the phase which they were formed in. Using the wash-out/refill technique, where a network is formed, the liquid crystal is washed out and leaves a long-range orientationally ordered network for polymerisation in the nematic phase and a helical network for the chiral nematic phase. The behaviour of the refilled LC devices is largely dominated by the interaction between the polymer network and the refilled liquid crystal.

This research is focused on the utilising different types of polymer networks, refilled with various liquid crystal phases. Different lyotropic or cholesteric liquid crystals with opposite handedness and varying pitch are refilled into a specific polymer network and the interaction between the network and liquid crystal is characterised by polarising microscopy and spectroscopy. We determined the lower pitch boundary of helical transfer which will cause the selective reflective intensity of the light to surpass the theoretical limit of 50%. The helical polymer network is insufficient to induce a twist grain boundary structure in an achiral SmA phase. Additionally, the nematic polymer network significantly enhances the alignment and orientation of a refilled lyotropic nematic phase, showing excellent dark state positions. When a helical network is formed in a helical thermotropic phase, the helicity can be transferred to the refilled lyotropic phase.

Disruptive technologies are usually characterised by universal, versatile applications, which change many aspects of our life simultaneously, penetrating every corner of our existence. In order to become disruptive, a new technology needs to offer not incremental, but dramatic, orders of magnitude improvements. The more universal the technology, the better chances it has for broad base success. Significant progress has been made in taking graphene and related layered materials from a state of raw potential to a point where they can revolutionize multiple industries. Innovative Advanced Materials (IAM), targeted by the Innovative Advanced Materials for Europe partnership - IAM4EU, comprise enhanced variants of existing materials, with properties tuned for improved performance in specific applications, or to enable new ones, as well as novel materials enabling improved performance or new applications. The term “innovative” emphasizes the commercial potential and/or refers to modifications or functionalization used to generate IAMs, or to innovative ways to use them. By enabling new, competitive and sustainable products and markets, IAMs are pivotal in achieving the twin goals of the twin green and digital transitions and to boost competitiveness and resilience. I will highlight the journey of innovation initiated with the Graphene Flagship and the Advances in Materials Innovation targeted by IAM4EU.

Polymer nanocomposites exhibit complex behaviour due to physical and possibly also chemical interactions between individual components (polymer, clay, compatibilizer). Despite research and development of this material class has been done almost over 40 years (Toyota invented first polyamide-clay nanocomposite at 1985), there is still huge potential open due to difficulties coming from nanoparticles dispersion state in different polymers. This includes on one hand control of the compounding process and on other hand a proper characterization of nanoparticles dispersion in final material structure. In this lecture, advances in the mixing technology as well as characterization techniques will be shown on examples of polymer-clay nanocomposites, based on both synthetic and biopolymers. Concerning compounding process, results on laboratory as well on semi-industrial scale will be presented and relevant advantages and disadvantages will be discussed. From the point of view different characterization techniques, conventional (like mechanical and morphological testing) as well as advanced (rheology and spectroscopy performed off- and on-line) measurement approaches will be introduced.

Typically, in alloy design, thermodynamic modeling is employed to foresee equilibrium states. This is succeeded by thermomechanical treatment to disrupt the equilibrium state, followed by final annealing treatments to achieve a consistently stable state for practical applications. However, this conventional approach considers thermal activation, stress, and chemical stress separately, often resulting in states that may not be the most efficient utilization of precious metallic ingredients. Our research aims to integrate multiple stimuli, such as mechanical stress, chemical potentials, and thermal activation, to create multifunction composite alloys. In this presentation, I will share examples of how this approach was effectively applied in our ongoing research. For example, we utilize an Al-Mg alloy modified with Fe3O4 particles through friction-assisted processing to produce nano-composite materials comprising Al, Al-Fe intermetallics, core-shell particles of Fe+MgO, and Al2O3. These composites exhibit high mechanical strength, ductility, and ferromagnetic characteristics.

Today, liquid crystals (LCs) are common materials used in the flat screen displays that we see all around us. Yet, these displays only use one type of liquid crystal, the nematic phase, a phase which is characterised solely by orientational order of shape anisotropic molecules. In fact, there is a whole zoo of about 25 different liquid crystal phases that have been discovered over the last 130 years, which all vary in their ordering phenomena, displaying short-range one- and two-dimensional positional order, orthogonal vs tilted phases, different polar subphases, which show paraelectricity, ferro-, ferri-, and antiferroelectricity, all the way to the many different soft crystal materials. The plethora of liquid crystal phases, all separated thermodynamically by 1^st or 2^nd order phase transitions, allows for a wealth of applications far beyond displays.

These liquid crystal phases of novel compounds are generally characterised by texture observation in polarised optical microscopy (POM), which takes much practice and a good amount of expertise. And even then, additional methods are often needed, such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), x-ray diffraction and other more sophisticated methodologies. We show that machine learning can be employed to help researchers in characterising liquid crystals by automating texture characterisation with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and inception algorithms. We discuss the machine learning performance with respect to number of layers, inception blocks, image augmentation etc. for different types of liquid crystal series, (i) chiral nematic-fluid smectic -hexatic smectic, (ii) orthogonal smectic and soft crystal phases, (iii) ferroelectric subphases, and (iv) novel nematic structures, including the much anticipated ferroelectric nematic phase. Accuracies in phase identification lie between 95-100%, depending on the amount of data used, the capacity of the algorithm and the phases involved.

We further demonstrate the detection of discontinuous and continuous phase transitions, as well as the localisation of topological defects. Finally, we discuss the determination of liquid crystal physical parameters from electro-optic curves.

Although lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have found an unprecedented place in the portable electronic devices owing to their unique properties such as high energy density, single cell voltage, long shelf-life, etc., their application in electric vehicles still requires further improvements in terms of power density, better safety and fast charging ability (i.e., 15 min charging) for long driving range. The challenges of fast charging of LIBs have limitations such as low lithium ion transport in the bulk and solid electrode/electrolyte interfaces which are mainly influenced by the ionic conductivity of the electrolyte. Therefore, engineering of electrolytes plays a key role in enhancing the fast-charging capability of LIBs. Here, we have employed a combination of electrolyte additives in order to improve its charge-discharge properties. Further we have also synthesized a novel -viologen that contains 4,4’-bipyridinium unit and a terminal carboxylic acid group with positive charges that confines PF₆ anions and accelerates the migration of lithium-ions due to electrostatic repulsion and thus increases the rate capability of lithium-ion batteries. The lithium-ion cells comprising LiFePO₄/Li with viologen-added in the electrolyte exhibited a discharge capacity of 110 mAh g^-1 at 6 C –rate with 95 % of capacity retention even after 500 cycles. The added-viologen not only enhanced the electrochemical properties but also significantly reduces the self-extinguishing time. The fast-charging ability and better cycling performances at 6C –rate is attributed to the formation of a stable, robust and conductive solid electrode/electrolyte interface with less corrosive aluminum current collector.

e-mail: amstephan@cecri.res.in

Lithium-sulfur (Li−S) batteries are considered as one of the most promising next geeration rechargeable batteries owing to their very high theoretical capacity of sulfur (S) cathodes (1672 mAhg^-1), low cost and environmental benignity. Nevertheless, the commercialization of this system is plagued by a number of serious problems, which include poor electronic conductivity of sulfur, volume change, shuttling of polysulfide and high self-discharge during dynamic and static conditions. These problems arise in large part from the dissolution, diffusion, and side-reaction of soluble lithium polysulfides in the electrolyte, formation of irreversible insoluble Li₂S and Li₂S₂ Although numerous studies have been focused on enhancing the conductivity of elemental sulfur only a few studies have been reported on the mitigation of lithium polysulfides and self-discharge.

The most commonly employed methods for preventing LiPS from shuttling are chemisorption, ion sieving, and electrostatic attraction/repulsion. The interlayer/permselective membrane not only prevents the lithium polysulfides from shuttling but also prevents self-discharge. Inorganic oxides, sulfides, and carbides have also been coated onto porous separators that provide adsorption sites for trapping LiPS. Researchers have explored inhibition of LiPS by electrostatic attraction and repulsion through the introduction of functionalized organic, and porous organic polymers. The importance of a permselective membrane/interlayer and the role of different electrolyte additives in enhancing the formation SEI layers, fire retardant properties have been systematically investigated. The self-discharge of Li- S cells were appreciably suppressed and are discussed.

e-mail: anguluxmi@gmail.com

The function of engineered tissues and organs-on-a-chip, including permeability and contractility, depends on scaffold properties. Scaffolds for these applications must precisely control microscale structure, elasticity (1–500 kPa), mechanical anisotropy, and biocompatibility. While 3D printing complex structures from hydrogels is possible, their low mechanical support (1–10 kPa) often leads to collapse under cellular forces during tissue formation. Polymers, though useful, have limitations: common polyesters like PLGA are too rigid (1–200 MPa) for soft tissues and are non-permeable to proteins and cells. These challenges are particularly relevant for vascularization, where enclosed conduits need to be embedded within a scaffold that maintains cellular structure and mechanical properties, or in the engineering of functional organs like the heart's left ventricle.

In this presentation, I will discuss how extrusion 3D printing of thermoplastic elastomer composites has increased the fabrication efficiency of the Biowire heart-on-a-chip device by over 60,000%. Additionally, I will cover a high-throughput 3D printing method using coaxial extrusion to create perfusable elastomeric microtubes with very small inner diameters (350–550 μm) and wall thicknesses (40–60 μm). This technique enables the production of biomimetic structures resembling cochlea and kidney glomeruli, allowing for efficient, high-throughput generation of perfusable structures suitable for seeding with endothelial cells in biomedical applications. Finally, using capillary microfluidics and UV crosslinking, we have produced monodisperse elastomeric polymer particles that reinforce hydrogel structures in 3D printing, leading to the creation of self-healing, 3D printable granular materials with enhanced permeability

Due to their unique properties, such as their high strength-to-weight ratio, Ti alloys could attract lots of attention in various industries. However, its inherent low machinability feature, as well as low thermal conductivity production of complex shape Ti components, is a real challenge. Therefore, additive manufacturing (AM) has been considered as a promising solution to produce Ti components. Nevertheless, the number of Ti alloys processed via AM technologies is limited. Hence, in this research, different Ti alloys have been developed and processed via various AM technologies so as to expand the application of this alloy in different sectors. The outcomes confirm that the new Ti alloys exhibited superior properties compared to the traditional alloys. This research opens up new possibilities for AM applications in high-tech sectors like aerospace, biomedical and automotive and highlights the potential of new Ti alloys processed via AM.

For maintaining water quality, planning remediation strategies, and ecosystem restoration works, detecting metal ions in aquatic water bodies is critical. Plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy using plasmonic particles tailored and decorated by organic molecules provides promising, simple, portable, robust, and economically viable sensing systems for metal ions in the field or point-of-care settings. For this, silver nanoparticles functionalized with sulfosalicylic acid (SSA-AgNPs) have been synthesized by chemical reduction methods for the detection of Arsenic [As (V)] ions in aqueous solution using the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique. The addition of metal ions to the SSA-AgNPs solution induces alterations in the spectral features of the peaks of SSA-AgNPs. In addition, they also lead to the formation of new characteristic bands. A significant enhancement in the intensity has been observed for these bands in the form of SERS signals. These peculiar characteristic peaks can be used for the detection of As (V) ions in an aqueous solution. This study demonstrates the applicability of SSA-AgNPs as plasmon-enhancing spectroscopy agents for the simple, prompt, easily accessible, and portable detection of metal ion pollution in an aqueous medium.