News

October 2022

Alice Zhang joined our team (Abbott group) to work on the experimental evaluation of LC-based systems. Welcome, Alice!

 

August 2022

Kiran Agrahari joined our team (Twieg group) to work on LC synthesis. Welcome, Kiran!

 

July 2022

Our paper titled "Investigation of the Mesogenic Behavior of Alkoxy and Fluorine Tail Terminated Alkoxy Nitrobiphenyls for Chemoresponsive Liquid Crystals" was accepted for publication in Liquid Crystals. 10.1080/02678292.2022.2103193

 

November 2021

Evangelos Smith joined our team (Mavrikakis group) to work on the simulation of LC-metal interfaces. Welcome, Evan!

 

July 2021

The Abbott group at Cornell University hosted three teachers from NYC in their laboratory in July 2021, and presented a lecture to them on chemoresponsive LCs, and also had the teachers perform a series of experiments. Discussions between the teachers and the Abbott group focused on the development of experimental modules that can be used to illustrate concepts to high school students related to weak bonding and soft materials.

Hosting teachers

Showing teachers the lab

 

June 2021

Nanqi presented a talk at the 95th ACS Colloid & Surface Science Symposium (virtual) titled "Towards New Tools for Heterogeneous Catalysis Using Soft Materials: Hydrogenation of Nitrile Containing Liquid Crystals on Palladium Surfaces".

 

May 2021

Our paper titled "Coupling the chemical reactivity of bimetallic surfaces to the orientations of liquid crystals” was accepted in Materials Horizons. 10.1039/D1MH00035G

 

March 2021

Our paper titled "Designing chemically selective liquid crystalline materials that respond to oxidizing gases” was accepted in Journal of Materials Chemistry C. 10.1039/D1TC00544H

 

January 2021

Our paper titled “Design of Chemoresponsive Soft Matter Using Hydrogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals” was accepted in Materials. 10.3390/ma14051055

 

August 2020

Our paper titled “Influence of multifluorophenyloxy terminus on the mesomorphism of the alkoxy and alkyl cyanobiphenyl compounds in search of new ambient nematic liquid crystals and mixtures” was accepted in Liquid Crystals. 10.1080/02678292.2020.1810792

 

June 2020

Our paper titled “Binding of Organophosphorus Nerve Agents and Their Simulants to Metal Salts” got accepted in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. 10.1021/acsami.0c05777

 

April 2020

Our paper titled “New Room Temperature Nematogens by Cyano Tail Termination of Alkoxy and Alkylcyanobiphenyls and Their Anchoring Behavior on Metal Salt-decorated Surface” appeared in the latest issue of Liquid Crystals. 10.1080/02678292.2019.1662116

 

February 2020

Trenton James Wolter joined our team (Mavrikakis group) to work on the simulation of LC-metal interfaces. Welcome, Trent!

 

January 2020

Ayushi Tripathi joined our team (Abbott group) to work on the experimental evaluation of LC-based systems. Welcome, Ayushi!

Our paper titled “Synthesis and Properties of Fluorine Tail-terminated Cyanobiphenyls and Terphenyls for Chemoresponsive Liquid Crystals” appeared in the latest issue of Liquid Crystals 10.1080/02678292.2019.1616228

 

December 2019

Working with elementary school students

Huaizhe worked with elementary students at GIAC (Greater Ithaca Activities Center) on the activity 'Simple Circuits'

 

November 2019

Jake presented a poster at Olaf A. Hougen Symposium titled "Hydrogenation-Triggered Orientational Transitions of Liquid Crystals Adsorbed on Palladium"

Tibi presented at the AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Annual Meeting at Orlando, FL titled "Molecular Adsorbate-Triggered Orientational Transitions of Liquid Crystals on Metal Surfaces"

Jake presented at the AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Annual Meeting at Orlando, FL titled " First-Principles Design of Nerve Agent Sensing Systems Using Chemoresponsive Liquid Crystals"

Nanqi had an oral presentation at the AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Annual Meeting at Orlando, FL titled “Redox-Triggered Orientational Responses of Liquid Crystals to Ozone Gas”

 

September 2019

Nanqi tought local K-12 students about biopolymers with the CCMR at the Family Science event at the Tompkins County Library.

Our paper titled “Amplification of Elementary Surface Reaction Steps on Transition Metal Surfaces Using Liquid Crystals: Dissociative Adsorption and Dehydrogenation” appeared in the latest issue of Journal of the American Chemical Society. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.9b08057

 

July 2019

Working with high school students

Huaizhe joined the Catalyst Academy and Curie Academy programs, where they worked with high school students to perform hands on activities such as the science behind making ice cream.

Nanqi presented a poster at the CBE Scholarship for Fellowship Event in Cornell University, titled “Chemoresponsive liquid crystal systems”

 

June 2019

Huaizhe presented at the 93rd ACS Colloid & Surface Science Symposium at Atlanta, GA titled “Dissociative adsorption of chlorine on metal surfaces triggers orientational transitions of liquid crystals”

 

April 2019

Jake volunteering for Engineering Expo

 Jake volunteered for the Engineering Expo of UW-Madison to showcase the interesting properties of liquid crystals to K-12 students.