GCNN Group of Carbon Nanostructures and Nanotechnology

24/07/2025

Also fully Open Access now our article "Carbon nanomaterials-Based Inks and Electrodes Using Chitin Nanocrystals",
ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2024, 12, 15980-15590:

Dispersing 1D carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) for film processing traditionally relies on surfactants or organic solvents. These methods, however, raise environmental concerns and can negatively impact the final properties of the CNMs. In this work we demonstrate that chitin nanocrystals (ChNCs) synthes...

24/07/2025

Contributing to sustainable device components, it's great to see our work on "Carbon nanotube film electrodes enabled by nanostructured biopolymers through aqueous processing" being published in PCCP. It's freely available under https://doi.org/10.1039/d5cp01536g. Enjoy reading.

Processing carbon nanotubes (C**s) into conductive films via liquid-phase is highly attractive for the fabrication of electronic and electrochemical device components. However, conventional deposition methods usually suffer from several limitations, including environmental concerns, loss of intrinsi...

11/07/2025

Congratulations to Carlos Martínez, PhD student in our Group, for receiving the "Best Presentation" Award for his talk entitled "Fotoelectrodos nanoestructurados: Estratégicas hacia una funcionalidad superior en procesos fotoelectroquímicos", delivered at the "Encuentro Español de Jóvenes Investigadores en Fotocatálisis", (July 1-2), organizado por CONEXIONES FOTOCATÁLISIS, at the Escuela Politécnica Superior de Alcoy (EPSA - UPV).

26/06/2025

What a pleasure gathering three generations of scientist of our group. Wonderful meeting accompanied by former collaborators and the whole group. Good memories. Enjoying Science.

25/06/2025

Another great day: Miguel Ángel Álvarez Sánchez defended his PhD thesis on "Green emissive carbon dots".
Congratulations!

24/06/2025

Great day. Victor Calvo defended his PhD on "Nanostructured biopolymers, bionanofabrication and the path towards a sustainable nanotechnology".
Congratulations to the new Doctor.

08/05/2025

Excellent talk given by PhD student Carlos Martínez about his results obtained during his stay at the research group of Prof. Thomas Berger (Paris Lodron Univ. Salzburg).

30/04/2025

Our latest publication is out: "Fabrication of a-Fe2O3 Nanoparticles/g-C3N4 Direct Z-Scheme Heterojunction of Durable Photocatalytic Activity".
Nice collaboration between our group at ICB-CSIC, Univ. Antwerp, INMA-CSIC-UniZar, Argonne National Lab.
The article is freely available at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsanm.5c00991.
Enjoy.

The fabrication of a nanohybrid photocatalyst that combines α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles with graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is reported. The ensuing direct Z-scheme heterojunction greatly boosts the photocatalytic activity of the α-Fe2O3/g-C3N4 nanohybrids. This results in organic dye degradation rat...

30/04/2025

Nice seminar talks given by our group members:
- PhD student Miguel Ángel Álvarez on "Dispersions with nanobiopolymers"
- Postdoc Alejandro Galán on "Hematite nanoparticles for PEC watersplitting"

26/02/2025

Our latest article now is fully out:

Multifaceted role of H2O2 in the solvothermal synthesis of green-emitting nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots.

Chem. Sci., 2025, 16, 3662-3670.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sc07896a.

The article is open Access and freely available at

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/sc/d4sc07896a.

Enjoy!

03/02/2025

Happy to see our latest work on the "Multifaceted role of H2O2 in the solvothermal synthesis of green-emitting nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots" being published in Chemical Science.
The open access ASAP version of the article is already available on:
https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sc07896a.
Enjoy the new findings!

Fluorescent nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-GQDs) with long-wavelength emission properties are of increased interest for technological applications. They are widely synthesized through the solvothermal treatment of graphene oxide (GO) using N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) as a cleaving and doping agent. H...

22/01/2025

Our latest collaborative work on dye-graphene hybrid nanomaterials for water splitting photoanodes is out. The work is lead by Alejandro Ansón from GCNN and María-Jesús Blesa from UniZar. It is published in Materials 2025, 18, 463 and freely available at

Dye-sensitization is a promising strategy to improve the light absorption and photoactivity abilities of wide-bandgap semiconductors, like TiO2. For effective water-splitting photoanodes with no sacrificial agents, the electrochemical potential of the dye must exceed the thermodynamic threshold need...