The European Research Council (ERC) announced last Thursday 22th April the projects assigned this year a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, among whom was the ICREA Prof. Daniel Maspoch, group head at ICN2, with the CLIPOFF-CHEM. This project aims to develop a highly innovative top-down synthesis technique, based on the control at molecular level of the breaking of preformed molecules and structures.
ICREA Prof. Daniel Maspoch, leader of the ICN2 Supramolecular NanoChemistry and Materials group has obtained a grant from the European Research Council (ERC) of over 2,5 million euros (https://erc.europa.eu/news/erc-2020-advanced-grants-results). This is the third ERC grant he has received, after a Consolidator Grant in 2014 for his project InanoMOF, with which he developed new methodologies to synthesise nanocomposites from MOFs, and a Proof of Concept in 2019 to transfer the results to industrial applications related to water purification.
The ERC awards the Advanced Grants to projects with an innovative nature, a potential high impact in its research field and an excellent scientific outlook. The principal investigator is required to be excellent in terms of originality and significance of their contributions to science. This year, a total of 2,287 proposals were submitted for this call, and the success rate has been around 8% (209 have been accepted).
The new ERC project that Prof. Maspoch will lead is named CLIPOFF-CHEM and springs from his previous projects and extensive research in MOFs. Dr. Maspoch’s lab aims to develop a novel synthesis method that can mark a change of paradigm in the field of synthesis of structures and molecules. The abbreviation CLIPOFF-CHEM corresponds to a synthesis method designed by his group and called Clip-off Chemistry. Many synthesis strategies currently applied, especially in supramolecular chemistry, use bottom-up techniques, which consist of bonding atoms or molecules to create new molecules or materials. Clip-off Chemistry is based on selective and high precision breaking of existing bonds in reticular materials. Therefore, it represents a radical change, which will offer the possibility to synthesise many and diverse materials, having different composition (from organic to metal-organic), dimensions (from 3D down to 0D) and size (from macro- to nano-scale).
Congratulations Prof. Daniel Maspoch!
