Earlier this week, some of the ALCEMISTs from NOVA and the University of Luxembourg got the chance to attend a workshop on at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Self-Assembly in Golm (near Potsdam)! Hosted by Prof. Silvia Vignolini of the Department of Sustainable and Bio-Inspired Materials, this workshop looked at how cellulose nanocrystals can form liquid crystalline structures and some of their possible applications. Jan and Lena presented talks for the occasion, and Amina and Luís also joined and participated in the discussions.

photo credit: Silvia Vignolini

For the second workshop (and fourth official meeting) of the ALCEMIST project, we met at the University of Cambridge on 7 and 8 September 2026!

the almost complete ALCEMIST team, University of Cambridge

During this meeting, we updated everyone on the current progress in our ALCEMIST tasks and the plans we have for the next stages of the project.

During the workshop, we also had the pleasure of welcoming Prof. Jaana Vapaavuori from Aalto University! She presented work on textile-based sensors and robotics (very neatly in the realm of ALCEMIST).

In addition to the scientific program, we also took advantage of the visit to Cambridge for discussions; for collaborations; to take in the sights; explore the campus and labs; and to have dinner at The Eagle, a famous pub known for being where James Watson and Francis Crick worked out the structure of DNA and the canonical amino acids.

Overall, it was a successful visit, and we're looking forward to seeing everyone's progress at the next meeting in Lisbon!

Tags: workshop

On 7th of April 2026, the first ALCEMIST workshop took place, this time gathering the entire team (except one PhD student who unfortunately fell ill). The workshop was organized in Luxembourg, this time on the new Belval campus of the University of Luxembourg, as we took advantage of the fact that the ESMP group was organizing the German Liquid Crystal Conference 2026 (GLCC) on the same campus, 8-10th of April, allowing ALCEMIST to be showcased also at the conference (where one example of ALCEMIST research won a best poster prize).


At the workshop we presented the recent advances in all three scientific work packages. As highlights we may mention:

• WP 1: The Nova team perfected their method to synthesize butyrate hydroxypropylcellulose (BPC) and can now provide all team members with tens of grams each. The BPC can easily be shear-aligned for uniform non-helical arrangement and the team also demonstrated a method for getting uniform structural color from BPC films across 100 square cm areas and showed that the color can be tuned across the full visible spectrum.
  
• WP 1: The Cambridge team showed revealing experiments with mesogen-functionalized styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), demonstrating a new understanding of the subtle microphase dynamics that are key for the function of this recyclable LCE. They also demonstrated different ways of crosslinking BPC films as well as cholesteric hydrogels with mechanochromic responsive color.
• WP 2–3: The Luxembourg team showed their recent success in upscaling the spinning of cylindrical CLCE fibers with mechanochromic response into a fully continuous process, allowing fibers of arbitrary length. They also showed recent results from their collaboration with a fashion designer in knitting mechanochromic garments using the fibers.
• WP 2–3: The Luxembourg team also showed a proof of concept of flow-processing LCE precursors for patterning topological defects into the director field. They demonstrated a 10 cm diameter and ~1 mm thick circular LCE with four tangential +1 defects which delivers cm-scale actuation upon heating. This work also garnered the best poster prize at the GLCC where it was showcased for the first time to a broader audience.

At the meeting we had the pleasure to host two specially invited guests and collaborators of the ALCEMIST project, Prof. Apala Majumdar from University of Manchester, UK, and Med. Dr. Attila Dubecz from the Heliosklinikum Erfurt, Germany. Apala is an applied mathematician who is supporting ALCEMIST with developing analytical models for analyzing complex flow behavior in liquid crystal elastomer precursors, and Attila is a surgeon specializing in robotic surgery, together with whom we are developing our mechanochromic CLCE fibers to be used as suture threads in order to give robotic surgeons feedback on tension during suturing. The presentations by Apala and Attila and the discussions with them throughout the day were truly enriching for the meeting and for the whole ALCEMIST team.




The workshop was wrapped up with a dinner for all participants during which the lively discussions continued.

Tags: meeting, workshop