Alexander John Cruz will soon be joining the Ameloot group. His doctoral work will focus on the further fundamental elucidation of the MOF-CVD process and subsequent upscale reactor engineering. Alex completed a degree in chemical engineering at the University of the Philippines. He was awarded with the President’s Graduate Fellowship by the National University of Singapore (NUS) where he pursued advanced studies in chemical and biomolecular engineering and management of technology. Alex worked on heterojunction photovoltaics and metallization formulation chemistry at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore in NUS. Prior to pursuing a scientific research track, Alex was a Refinery Energy and Benchmarking Advisor for Royal Dutch Shell. Welcome aboard, Alex!

In this report, Bart looked at the water-induced transformation of the [Zn2(dobdc)] (dobdc = 2,5-dioxidobenzene-1,4-dicarboxylate) metal-organic framework UTSA-74 to its polymorph MOF-74(Zn), contrary to a previous report on the stability of UTSA-74 under such conditions. This dissolution-recrystallization process was investigated in close collaboration with the Stock group (CAU Kiel, DE) using time-resolved in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction data collected at PETRA III (DESY, Hamburg), which were kinetically analyzed using the Gualtieri crystallization model.

Cesar is originally from Mexico, and recently completed his postdoctoral appointment at the Folch lab (University of Washington, Bioengineering Department) under the supervision of Prof. Albert Folch. He explored the use of 3D-Printing (in particular, stereolithography) to fabricate microfluidic devices. Cesar’s experiments have aimed at advancing the resolution of the 3D-Printing process, as well as the biocompatibility and transparency of the resins employed in the printing. Previously, Cesar completed his PhD in Biomedicine and Microfluidics at the University of Barcelona, under the supervision of Dr. Antoni Homs (now in ICN2). He did his research at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in the Nanobioengineering group where he developed microfluidic devices with integrated biosensors for the detection of specific biomarkers. He also did a short stage in the group of Micro and Nanosystems of Prof. Wouter van der Wijngaart at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) at Sweden. In our group, Cesar will focus on 3D printing of microfluidic devices. Welcome Cesar!

The Belgian Industrial Research and Development Board (BiR&D) attaches great importance to industrial valorisation and societal relevance. The yearly BiR&D Multi-Disciplinary PhD Thesis Award is granted in recognition of a PhD thesis that presents an original and multidisciplinary contribution with potential industrial valorisation and societal relevance.

James Campbell is joining our group having undertaken a year of post-doctoral research funded by the Dean of Engineering Prize at the University of Nottingham. While at Nottingham James’s research focused on the fabrication of gas separation membranes composed of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as part of Dr Begum Tokay’s research Group. James obtained his PhD at Imperial College London, under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Livingston, researching the fabrication of hybrid polymer/MOF membranes for OSN applications. James was recently awarded the 2016 annual award for the best journal paper on Membrane Science and Engineering from the European Membrane Society for his paper entitled for his paper "Fabrication of hybrid polymer/metal organic framework membranes: mixed matrix membranes versus in situ growth" published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A. In our group James will focus on the fabrication of ultra-thin MOF membranes fabricated via a MOF-CVD process for gas separations. Welcome James !

Timothée’s ChemSusChem paper demonstrates how the superior adsorptive properties of porous and crystalline metal-organic framework (MOFs) offer novel and sustainable alternatives for the recovery of biobased fermentative products. This paper resulted from a collaboration with the De Vos group, Stock group (CAU, DE) Bein group (LMU, DE).

Many thanks to the European Research Council for awarding Rob's starting grant project VAPORE!

In this paper we try to highlight the underlying concepts of vapor phase growth of MOFs and which exciting perspectives this MOF-CVD approach opens.

BBC show The Naked Scientists highlights the work on MOF-based sensors in a radio interview with Rob.

Our work on MOF-based sensors for the detection of nerve agents sparked a lot of interest, from within the academic community but as well from the broader public and some companies! In the future we will build on this work to develop sensors for (1) indoor air quality monitoring, (2) medical diagnosis based on breath analysis and (3) monitoring the evolution of complex aromas (e.g. ripening of fruit, detecting the freshness of meat, etc.)