1) Carbon, Diamond and Graphene based nanomaterials (NanoCARBON)
Chair: Professor Werner Blau, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
2) Nanocapacity: Innovation and Beyond
Chair: Dr Mikael Syväjärvi, Linköping University, Sweden
This symposium is the first in a series for building innovation capacity from research and innovation in nanoscience and technology. The symposium has the aim to share experiences and practices regarding the transition from research and innovation to a key enabling technology in our society. The topical outcomes at the first Nanocapacity Symposium will be used as input to the next innovation event (NANOSMAT Manchester September 2020). The overall aim is to create exchange between a network of scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, industrialists, etc to establish a platform that can push the implementation of research and innovations to market at a faster pace.
Nanotechnology has the potential to make a profound societal impact. The uptake of research findings by industry will require a transition where research findings are manufactured in production. Startups from research results will not on their own be able to drive towards pilot production. At the same time, industries will not be able to adapt a large number of technology innovations and aggregate to a value chain in production to produce a commercial system from materials, processing and device innovations. In other words, there will be several actors (research innovators, startup entrepreneurs, industrial uptakers etc) who need to find common ground.
This symposium gathers interested stakeholders to share experiences. The expected outcome is building of capacity in the process of transition from research to industry.
3) NanoAFRICA: Developments and future in NANO!
Chair: Professor Maaza Malik, UNESCO UNISA Africa Chair in Nanosciences & Nanotechnology, South Africa.
4) Graphene/ graphene related phases: synthesis, characterization, functionalization and applications
Chair: Dr Teodor I. Milenov, Inst. of Electronics, Bulg. Acad. Sci. Bulgaria.
As is well known, over the past 10 years a great deal of research work has been focused on graphene and graphene-related phases (defective graphene, graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide): the number of published articles on this topic steadily increased from about 3000 in 2008 to over 30,000 in 2018 (Source: ISI Web of Science). This fact illustrates the tremendous interest in graphene and graphene-related phases, based on the outlined prospectives for their technological applications.
The session is expected to become a forum where scientists will present new ways for graphene film deposition as well as for the synthesis of nano-dispersed graphene / graphene-related phases and their functionalisation for various applications. In addition, researchers are encouraged to report their recent achievements in the characterization of nano-carbons in order to help outlining a clearer picture of the correlation structure-defects-properties of these phases.
5) Functional Materials for Energy Applications
Chair: Professor Neerish Revaprasadu, University of Zululand, South Africa
Topics considered for this special session:
- Oxide and chalcogenide based nanomaterials for applications in energy storage and generation.
- 2-D materials beyond graphene: Synthesis, properties and applications.
- Perovskites for photovoltaic applications.
- Materials for photo and electrochemical water splitting.
- Novel carbon based materials and composites for energy applications.
- Green materials and processes for energy applications.
- Polymers for energy applications.
- Thin film deposition techniques and applications.
6) Advances in 2D Materials
Chair: Dr Mohammed Khenfouch, NANOSMAT (Morocco)
2D materials have attracted extensive interest due to their promising properties such as high mobility, high conductivity and high mechanical strength and and the efficiency they showed in many applications. This session will discuss the advances and the recent findings in this field.