Last year was fairly busy, with aftershocks from the pandemic, and preparations of publications that are currently in review, so I’m sorry to say I missed writing posts for some publications I had collaborated on.

The first is a review paper led by my PhD student, Maira Anam. It reviews the state of the art and trends regarding electrodes for bio-electrochemical cells (BESs). These BES devices are electrochemical reactors that use a population of bacteria to perform important chemical reactions, such as degrading pollutants or generating hydrogen. The bacteria live on an electrode, and the efficiency of the BES is directly tied to the health of the bacterial colony and its ability to electronically and electrochemically communicate with the electrode. This paper takes a special focus on a special sub set of BES, the bio-photovoltaic cell, which uses photosynthetic microbes to generate hydrogen ions, which then produce electricity through an integrated hydrogen fuel cell.
Maira and I are currently 3D-printing new electrodes for test-scale BPVs, as part of her thesis and my research. The review paper can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1SE00396H

The second paper was a large collaboration with Dr. Vincenzo Taresco, of the Dr. Steve Howdle Polymers & Supercritical Fluids Group, led by his PhD student Philippa L. Jacob. In this work a process for enzymatically-catalysed synthesis of poly(glycerol adipate) (PGA) variants from a variety of precursors resulted in fine control of the polymer functionality and properties. These were then evaluated for the formation of drug-delivery nanoparticles, providing a library of customisable polymers for nono-medicine. The paper can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2021.123912