A research team has modified the surface of plastics at micro and nanometric levels to give them additional properties such as hydrophobicity and colour without using dyes. This development can have many applications in the automotive sector.

Scientists at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) have demonstrated the capacity of an organic material to quickly and reversibly change its colour and electrical properties upon the application of an electric field. The reported results constitute a proof-of-concept that opens up new possibilities for the design and fabrication of organic electrochromic and rectifying devices for electronics.

A method for obtaining and evaluating organic materials for photovoltaic applications 50 times faster than conventional methods has been developed. The study has been published in the Advanced Electronic Materials journal and performed in the framework of the ERC project FOREMAT, led by Mariano Campoy-Quiles, scientist at the ICMAB-CSIC.

The Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona of the CSIC leads the development in Spain of a ultrasensitive sensors which will be used in the forthcoming European space missions. They are extremely sensitive and miniaturized microcalorimeters, like small thermometers, and can even detect the energy of one single photon. They find also applications in others fields, such as nanotechnology, biomedicine or security.

A recent study demonstrates the feasibility of the electrochemical extraction of calcium from a metal oxide, which could be used as a cathode (positive electrode) for calcium batteries.The study was carried out in collaboration with Toyota Motor Europe, and has resulted in a patent.

Researchers from the IBB-UAB and from the ICMAB-CSIC have obtained four molecules of only seven amino acids with the ability to self-assemble, which enables a fast and non expensive process to obtain nanomaterials for biomedical and nanotechnological purposes. They have used them to create one of the most resistant bionanomaterials described until now.

A study developed at the ICMAB-CSIC and published in Nature Photonics describes the technique to provide structural coloration on a cellulose derivative through its nanostructuration. The colors obtained do not depend on pigments but on nanostructures that interact differently with the incident light. Applications include ecofriendly production of color in packaging systems or decorative paper, anti-counterfeiting technology, or biocompatible, biodegradable, washable and edible and low cost detectors, sensors or labels.

They detect light below its absorption band and with a high efficiency. The presented devices demonstrate a wide spectroscopic photodetection and compactness of the device, making them much more portable and suitable for integrated electronics applications. The study was carried out by ICMAB researchers in collaboration with researchers from Dresden (Germany) and from Beijing (China).