We got a very pleasant Easter surprise yesterday :) Our paper "Non-equilibrium transformation of titanate nanowires to nanotubes upon mechanochemical activation" was accepted for publication in RSC Advances (2013) DOI:10.1039/C3RA40863A. This paper reports an important discovery made by Gábor Kozma: titanate nanowires can be transformed back into titanate nanotubes by applying precisely controlled mechanochemical activation. While the nanotube-to-nanowire conversion is a well-known phenomenon, this reverse reaction (nanowire-to-nanotube) is a new and unexpected finding. The importance of this reaction is that it helps us complete the scientific puzzle of titanate nanostructure interconversion pathways.

Good news: our paper Adsorption mechanisms of organic compounds on multiwall carbon nanotubes, written by our friends at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia was accepted for publication in the Chemical Engineering Journal (2013) this week. The first author of the paper is Marijana Kragulj. This is the first paper resulting from our collaboration in the framework of the IPA HU-SRB project "MATCROSS". It is a very fine work discussing the adsorption of nitroaromatics, nonpolar aliphatics,  nonpolar aromatics and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on different multiwall carbon nanotubes. 

The focus of this week was on the Szeged meeting of the NAPEP project. In this project researchers from Azerbaijan, Finland and Hungary have joined forces to create a nanotechnology platform that will help researchers from Azerbaijan broaden their collaborative network and be more involved in European projects in the future. 
The current Szeged meeting had two tasks:

1. A training event where researchers from the Baku State University were introduced to the Hungarian and Finnish technology transfer, innovation financing and intellectual property rights protection methods. 
2. A research workshop where the latest scientific results of all three participant groups were presented.

Moreover, we have had many opportunities for informal discussion and strengthening our friendship. On Thursday evening our project dinner was honored by Prof. Imre Dékány, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and President of the Szeged Regional Committee of the HAS. He informally discussed with the vice rector of the Baku State University and also with the coordinator of our NAPEP project  All in all, a very nice week indeed. Some photos from the week are presented below.

This entry is to keep the blog running. My teaching load has almost doubled in the past two weeks and I became somewhat ill as well, thus I had very little time to do  any useful stuff - no major breakthroughs this time, sorry folks. 
On the other hand, science in general has kept producing nice results of course. Please be sure to check our the "Science news" section for some highlights!

It is worth noting here that tomorrow (18th March) will be the first day of a Szeged based seminar organized by us for the FP7 "NAPEP" project. It will be attended by colleagues from Azerbaijan and Finland as well as by our own group members. This is the biggest event we organized since SIWAN 2012, so I'll keep the blog posted of course.

This week was all about people and contacts. On Wednesday my friend Vladimir V. Srdic from the University of Novi Sad has visited our group with two colleagues. We had a pleasant discussion about cooperation possibilities in the field of electroceramic thin films and could even get some TEM and SEM measurements done thanks to the help of Péter Pusztai and Dániel Madarász from our team. 
On Thursday our group was honored by the visit of Prof. László P. Biró, head of the Nanostructures Department of the MTA TTK MFA, Budapest. His group has some very interesting results on the optical properties of butterfly wings and I'm very excited about our cooperation related to the nanoporous structure of the wings. Interestingly, this topic fits 100% into the main research theme of our Porous Nanocomposites research group.

Friday was more about personal tones. The birthday of our good friend and master glassblower Csaba Asbóth was celebrated by a small surprise party which went quite well IMHO. Csaba deserves a high praise and I'm taking this opportunity to wish him all the bests again!
Friday was also the 1st of March, the first official working day of Ms. Tímea Simon, the new lab technician employed by the Porous Nanocomposites research group. This position was planned in the original "Lendület" proposal but we were not able to fill it until now, so I'm quite happy to have Tímea on board now. I hope that she and the group will have a mutually beneficial working relationship.