Mandel group

Professorship for
Inorganic Chemistry
The Supraparticle Group


Logo: The Supraparticle Group


Prof. Dr. Karl Mandel

Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy
Professorship for Inorganic Chemistry (Prof. Dr. Mandel)

Room: Room A 2.20
Egerlandstraße 1
91058 Erlangen

Our research

In the Supraparticle Group, we design highly functional supraparticles, i.e., particles of a few µm in size that are composed of nanoparticle (and molecular) building blocks.

These complex entities are achieved via forced assembly of the (nano) building blocks, mainly by using the technique of spray-drying.

We study how structure, besides (multimaterial) composition, of such supraparticles affects the interaction among the building blocks of these entities and how this leads to unique functionalities.

We exploit these findings for designing highly innovative communicating / interactive supraparticles and multifunctional adsorber / carrier and catalyst entities.

Many different material systems are studied in the group, but a special focus is on iron oxide nanoparticle-based magnetic systems and their characterization in particularly via magnetic particle spectroscopy (MPS), a to date rather unexplored approach that we pioneer.

Find out more, here.

 

Transfer to real-life application is achieved together with the Fraunhofer part of our group at Fraunhofer ISC in Würzburg.

 

Ultimately, via smart supraparticles, we aim at contributing to sustainability.

 

  • At the first Battery Direct Recycling Conference held in Würzburg, Sara Li Deuso gave an insight into her research on magnetic supraparticles as identifiers in single-layer lithium-ion battery pouch cells. She received an award for the best poster - including a nice t-shirt! More on the topic can...

  • We celebrate Bastian Fett’s successful defense of his PhD thesis entitled "Innovative material concepts for tandem solar cells”! Congratulations Basti!

  • And another article was just accepted where we demonstrate, together with the battery colleagues from the Fraunhofer ISC, how to mark batteries with magnetic ID supraparticles – just accepted in ChemSusChem. Deuso S., Ziegler S., Weber D., Breuer F., Haddad D., Müssig S., Flegler A., Giffin G.A.,...

  • Again good news come in pairs: RSC Energy & Environmental Science just accepted the work by colleagues at Fraunhofer ISC and us in which we discuss our thoughts and ideas on “the battery tug-of-war” when it comes to making the battery world more sustainable. Wolf A., Nagler F., Daubinger P., ...

  • Step by step we understand better how interactions among magnetic nanoparticles in supraparticle structures yield certain signal fingerprints in MPS. The latest work was just accepted by Particle and Particle Systems Characterization. Wolf A., Zhou H., Groppe P., Stiegler L.M.S., Kämäräinen T., P...

  • Karl had the honor to be one of 7 referees for a PhD defense in Belgium. With that honor comes the joy of dressing up in a traditional manner. See picture attached.

  • Advanced Functional Materials just accepted our latest work in which we describe how magnetic nano- and supraparticles can be tailored to achieve customized heating profiles upon induction heating. Luthardt L., Raczka T., Hurle K., Müssig S., Mandel K. Customizable induction heating profiles: fr...

  • It was a close race: At the same time as two other international research teams, we, in collaboration with the Schühle group, published the first article demonstrating the inductively heated dehydrogenation of a liquid organic hydrogen carrier! Find ou t more, here.   Schörner M., Solymos...

  • Andreas Wolf presented his work on magnetic supraparticles capable of recording high temperature events in from of a poster at the 22nd International Conference on Magnetism held in Bologna, Italy. The many hours going into the design of the figures of this work payed off, as he recieved the Best Po...