EU Prize for Women Innovators 2020: 21 entrepreneurs are through to the final

Twenty-one of the most talented and inspiring women entrepreneurs in Europe and beyond are in the shortlist for the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2020. The prize celebrates the outstanding achievements of female entrepreneurs running innovative companies and is funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation.

 NEWS  2020-07-10 

Improving zinc-air rechargeable batteries with nanoparticles

CSIC scientists at the ICMAB and the IMB-CNM are working to achieve an efficient zinc-air battery recharging. These batteries have more capacity than the lithium-ion ones, and are made of cheap materials, which are widely available in nature as well as safe.

 NEWS  2020-07-08 

HARVESTORE project

CNM-CSIC participates in the EU HARVESTORE project. It is a five years FET-PROACTIVE project aiming at miniaturised mixed energy harvesting and storage devices using disruptive concepts from the emerging Nanoionics and Iontronics disciplines. These nano-enabled micro-energy systems with a footprint below 1 cm3 should power autonomous wireless sensor nodes for the future Internet of Things from ubiquitous heat and light sources. CNM is providing the technological resources and knowhow to integrate those devices in silicon technology allowing the highly dense features and scalability required for real miniaturization and massive deployment that will show their viability as a new technological paradigm of embedded energy.

 NEWS  2020-07-01 

IONS4SET project

Ion-irradiation-induced Si nanodot Self-Assembly for Hybrid SET-CMOS Technology. The aim of the IONS4SET project was to create single electron transistors for ultra-low power electronics so that the component using these optimized transistors delivers good performance at very low energy consumption. This type of transistor requires fabrication of nanopillars well beyond the state of the art, which implement a process compatible with the semiconductor industry (CMOS).

 NEWS  2020-06-25 

Two runs of wafers were completed last week for the POC4COVID and CONVAT projects.

Two runs of wafers were completed last week for the POC4COVID and CONVAT projects, led by Cesar Fernández and Carlos Domínguez; both related to the detection of COVID-19. These runs have been manufactured during the weeks of confinement. Thanks to all the staff of the institute and, above all, to the workers in the Clean Room for the effort made.

 NEWS  2020-06-17 

Tracking intracellular forces and mechanical property changes in mouse one-cell embryo development
Marta Duch, et al; Nat. Mater. (2020).We identify a program of forces and changes to the cytoplasmic mechanical properties required for mouse embryo development from fertilization to the first cell division. Injected, fully internalized chips responded to sperm decondensation and recondensation, and subsequent device behavior suggested a model for pronuclear convergence based on a gradient of effective cytoplasmic stiffness. The nanodevices reported reduced cytoplasmic mechanical activity during chromosome alignment and indicated that cytoplasmic stiffening occurred during embryo elongation, followed by rapid cytoplasmic softening during cell division. Forces greater than those inside muscle cells were detected. These results suggest that intracellular forces are part of a concerted program that is necessary for development at the origin of a new embryonic life.

 2020-05-25 

Internalization and Viability Studies of Suspended Nanowire Silicon Chips in HeLa Cells
Sara Duran, et al; Nanomaterials 2020, 10(5), 893.Here, we propose the integration of silicon nanowires on cell internalizable chips in order to combine the functional features of both approaches. The cellular uptake in HeLa cells of silicon 3 µm × 3 µm nanowire-based chips, and the results were compared with those of non-nanostructured silicon chips. Chip internalization without affecting cell viability was achieved however, important cell behavior differences were observed. The first stage of cell internalization was favored by silicon nanowire interfaces with respect to bulk silicon. In addition, chips were found inside membrane vesicles, and some nanowires seemed to penetrate the cytosol, which opens the door to the development of silicon nanowire chips as future intracellular sensors and drug delivery systems.

 2020-05-07 

Lanthanide Luminescence to Mimic Molecular Logic and Computing through Physical Inputs
M. A. Hernández‐Rodríguez, et al; Adv. Optical Mater. 2020, 2000312..The remarkable advances in molecular logic reported in the last decade demonstrate the potential of luminescent molecules for logical operations, a paradigm-changing concerning silicon-based electronics. Trivalent lanthanide (Ln3+) ions, with their characteristic narrow line emissions, long-lived excited states, and photostability under illumination, may improve the state-of-the-art molecular logical devices. Here, the use of monolithic silicon-based structures incorporating Ln3+ complexes for performing logical functions is reported. Contrary to chemical inputs, physical inputs may enable the future concatenation of distinct logical functions and reuse of the logical devices, a clear step forward toward input–output homogeneity that is precluding the integration of nowadays molecular logic devices.

 2020-04-17 

A self-calibrating and multiplexed electrochemical lab-on-a-chip for cell culture analysis and high-resolution imaging
Pablo Giménez-Gómez et al.; Lab Chip, 2020, Advance Article.This paper presents a new tool that allows a self-calibrating and multiplexed electrochemical lab-on-a-chip (ME-LoC) for cell culture analysis and high-resolution imaging. The ME-LoC contains a complex network of micro-channels and micro-chambers that allow compartmentalization of the reference electrode cell seeding and proliferation without biofouling electrode reactivation and recalibration and multiple analyte detection, namely glucose and hydrogen peroxide concentrations, conductivity and ORP, as a way to monitor cell metabolism. Electrochemical analysis is completed with high-resolution imaging after labelling with fluorescent dyes. For its simplicity, integration, automation, compartmentalisation and microfluidic control, thist technology is a promising alternative for in vitro testing and organ-on-a-chip development in the near future.

 2020-01-02 

Automated Determination of As(III) in Waters with an Electrochemical Sensor Integrated into a Modular Microfluidic System
Pablo Giménez-Gómez et al.; ACS Sensors, 2019, 4, 3156−3165. • Development of a robust electrochemical sensor integrated into a modular microfluidic system with the potential for on-site monitoring of inorganic As(III) species.
• Microfluidic system enabling the automatic sensor calibration, sample uptake, sample preconditioning and eventual As(III) detection.
• Linear system response to As(III) in a concentration range of 1−150 μg L−1, with a detection limit of 0.42 μg L−1 (below the threshold value of 10 μg L−1 set by WHO.
• System validated by measuring As(III) in tap water samples and samples from two Argentinean aquifers.

 2019-10-28 

Impedimetric transducers based on interdigitated electrode arrays for bacterial detection
S.Brosel-Oliu et al.; A review, Anal.Chim.Acta, 2019, vol.1088, pp. 1-19. This review is focused on publications dealing with interdigitated electrodes as a transducer unit and different bacteria detection systems using these devices. The first part of the review deals with the impedance technique principles, paying special attention to the use of interdigitated electrodes, while the main part of this work is focused on applications ranging from bacterial growth monitoring to label-free specific bacteria detection.

 2019-09-13