24.04.2019Two papers by Seeger and Saddiqi on the front cover

In CHEMPHYSCHEM the paper was entitled Room-Temperature Synthesis of Germanium Oxide Nanofilaments and Their Potential Use as Luminescent Self-Cleaning Surfaces (Link to the paper). It describes a novel pathway to synthesize nanofilaments. Furthermore the authors were able to add selfcleaning properties and tailor-made wetting properties to this photo-luminescent nanomaterial. The facile synthesis of photoluminescent nanofilaments and the ability to functionalize them with different molecules for superhydrophobic and self-cleaning applications will open a new avenue for fabricating 1D nanostructures of various elements with tailor-made properties.

In the paper published in ADVANCED MATERIALS entitled Chemically Resistant, Electric Conductive, and Superhydrophobic Coatings (Link to the paper) the authors report about a facile coating method for the fabrication of superhydrophobic and conductive coatings. The coating method used exhibit  good chemical resistance after several days of immersion in acidic and basic aqueous solutions. With the addition of Parafilm-M also the mechanical durability could substantially be improved. The coatings also showed self-cleaning ability with good resistance to extreme humid conditions and immersion in water. Further, the coatings exhibit good resistance to corrosive aqueous environments after prolonged immersion. The ability to coat a variety of substrates with this facile method followed by quick dip coating can be a useful technique for the fabrication of multifunctional superhydrophobic coatings.