International Conference"New Carbon Nanomaterials: Ultrathin Diamond Films"

We invite you to take part in our international conference "New Carbon Nanomaterials: Ultrathin Diamond Films", which will be held online at NUST MISIS from 06 to 09 December 2021!

The conference is dedicated to two-dimensional diamond films, their preparation and properties. Leading scientists in this field will present their reports at the conference.

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These four days of the "New Carbon Nanomaterials: Ultrathin Diamond Films" conference were wonderful. You have made fascinating talks that arouse interest, curiosity, and motivation for further research. Our modest meeting allowed the participants to exchange opinions, ideas and maybe even to create collaborations. Therefore, we humbly wish that the conference has helped to develop the field of 2D diamonds. Some participants suggested that maybe we may make our conference a regular event. Good idea! We hope that after some time we may meet again to discuss the development of this field of science that interests us all.

Some unnecessary statistics ​ • Registered – 54 people • Simultaneous participation (online-offline) – 30 people • Time zones: from GMT-6 (Houston, USA) to GMT+11 (Australia)

Funding application supported

The project of our team "Comprehensive study of adsorbents based on hexagonal boron nitride nanoparticles for wastewater treatment of drugs" was supported by the Russian Science Foundation!

At present, the development of new drugs and their production has become a powerful branch of science and industry. Such growth of the pharmaceutical industry and widespread use of drugs inevitably leads to their release into the environment. In this regard, the search for effective techniques and new ways to remove antibiotics from water objects is currently an important scientific and practical task. The rapid development of nanotechnology, in particular the field of low-dimensional nanomaterials, can make a significant contribution to the development of this field and the improvement of the described situation. Adsorption of drug molecules onto a safe carrier is the most preferable purification methods, since they offer the possibility of using simple chemical-physical processes for cleaning water, air, surfaces from organic pollutants, which makes this process environmentally friendly and economical. Nanomaterials with a high specific surface area are ideal platforms for the development and production of cheap and highly effective biosensors, biofilters and carriers of antibacterial agents. These materials include hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). This material has a unique set of properties: low specific density, high thermal and chemical stability, heat resistance, biocompatibility, good adsorption capacity, and a wide forbidden zone. Thus, nanostructured h-BN is an ideal candidate as an absorbent material. However, the adsorption efficiency on the perfect surface of hexagonal boron nitride is hampered by the small number of activated centers which requires its modification. The novelty of the project is to perform a systematic experimental-theoretical study and to obtain a general model of sorption/desorption of various antibacterial agents on the surface of modified boron nitride nanoparticles. The main objective of this project is to study the sorption and desorption processes of different types of antibiotics as applied to h-BN nanostructures by both theoretical and experimental methods. Such a systematic approach will allow to study in depth the process of sorption/desorption of antibiotics of different classes, to describe the type of binding of the analyte with the adsorbent, to determine the nature of sorption and to study its dependence on external conditions. Nanoparticles based on h-BN with different surface modifications (introducing defects, decorating with metal atoms and/or nanoparticles, introducing foreign atoms into the structure, etc.) will be studied. Various groups of antibiotics will be selected as analytes, including macrolides (erythromycin), sulfonamides (sulfamethoxazole), diaminopyrimidines (trimethoprim), aminoglycosides (ciprofloxacin), tetracyclines (tetracycline) and β-lactams (penicillin). Such a comprehensive study will eventually allow the production of effective adsorbents and membranes based on them for wastewater treatment from contamination by pharmaceuticals.

The project PI is Dr. Liubov Sorokina.

Two-Dimensional Diamond—Diamane: Current State and Further Prospects (review)

In the Nano Letters journal published probably the most detailed review of the properties of two-dimensional diamond, or diamane. The review contains 106 references to papers devoted to this topic. The review discusses the properties of diamane, the problems of its synthesis and outlines the prospects for this field, at the crossroads of the timeless diamond and decade-old graphene.

The paper was published in Nano Letters 21, 5475–5484 (2021)

Diamond is certainly one of the most famous minerals, not only a beautiful piece of jewelry but also a crystal with a variety of unique faculties. Diamond is the hardest and stiffest, with the highest room-temperature thermal conductivity, and one of the lowest thermal expansion coefficients among existing materials. Furthermore, it is radiation-hard and chemically inert. All of this makes diamond an attractive material for use in high-power electronic devices, feasibly functioning under extreme conditions. No wonder since graphene (two-dimensional analogue of graphite) was produced scientists have been investigating the possibility of producing diamane, a two-dimensional (2D) diamond.

With the developments in the field of 2D materials, nowadays of growing interest is synthesis and investigation of 2D diamond, whose potential properties--if it is readily produced--put it in par with the most promising nanostructures such as graphene, h-BN or MoS2. However, in contrast to these iconic 2D materials, synthesis of 2D diamond is a tricky process, as its formation is hindered by the graphitization effects causing instability at nanoscale.

The figure shows the evolution of carbon based structures, from bilayered graphene (left part of the figure), which connection with reference atoms leads to the formation of two-dimensional diamond (middle), that, in turn, can be used as a basis for crystal growth (right).