Making material speak

Karl Mandel has received an ERC Consolidator Grant worth two million euros. With the funding, the chemist hopes to develop supraparticles that will give information about the state of materials.

Prof. Mandel, what are you currently researching?

We are researching supraparticles. These are small particles of only a few micrometers in size made up of much smaller nano components or molecules. We want to try and make the particles as “intelligent” as possible. One of our aims is for the particles to be able to communicate what happened to them, for instance if they were subjected to a certain temperature, humidity or other stress.

 Why are you interested in this topic?

Particle synthesis is really exciting, as you can discover highly unusual properties by exploring new combinations of nano or molecular components. I hope that the “communicating particles” will allow materials “to speak”, thereby enabling us to transform material into a source of information, thereby raising the topic of “information” to a new level, not only in the digital but also in the material world.

Which opportunities does your ERC Consolidator Grant offer?

The ERC gives me the financing to work together with my team over the long term, focusing on one particular topic. That would not be possible in smaller, shorter term projects. A complex topic requires a lot of time and resources, and this is what the ERC Consolidator Grant can give us.

 

studied earth science and materials science in Munich, Salzburg, Ulm and Oxford. He completed his doctoral degree in chemistry in 2013 at JMU Würzburg. From 2014 until 2024 he was the head of the Particle Technology Group at the Fraunhofer Institute of Silicate Research ISC in Würzburg. In 2018, he received 1.8 million euros in funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the NanoMatFutur competition in order to establish a junior research group in the area of material research. In 2020, Mandel was appointed Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at FAU. Since 2024, he has also belonged to the board of directors at the Fraunhofer ISC in Würzburg.

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Author:  Simone Harland

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