New Max Planck Partner Group with the University of Valencia

November 07, 2017
The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) continues to expand its international networking and cooperation: since June 2017, the institute has established a new Partner Group for colloidal methods in multifunctional materials at the University of Valencia. The Spanish lab, headed by Dr. Rafael Muñoz-Espí, will closely cooperate with Prof. Dr. Katharina Landfester’s department "Physical Chemistry of Polymers" at the MPI-P for the next three years, with an option of a two-year prolongation.

Together with the German partner from the MPI-P, the research group of Rafael Muñoz-Espí would like to develop new multifunctional systems to be used as platforms for the sustainable use of resources. The collaborative work will address the development of hybrid multicomponent nanomaterials and will investigate thereby the assembly of the building units as a function of their molecular features. How to apply the confinement provided by colloidal systems for the control of structure and properties of polymer materials and polymer/inorganic hybrids is the central scientific question of the Partner Group.

Among other systems, the Partner Group works on the development of nanoparticles with chiral functionalities for asymmetric catalysis.

Dr. Muñoz-Espí was coworker at the MPI-P for more than ten years and has kept a close scientific collaboration with the institute since his move to Valencia in 2015. He received his PhD in 2006 under the supervision of Prof. Gerhard Wegner, one of the founders of the MPI-P. After a two-year postdoctoral time at the Stony Brook University in New York, he came back to Mainz and joined the group of Prof. Katharina Landfester as a project leader. Since 2015 he has been a faculty member at the Institute of Materials Science of the University of Valencia (ICMUV), Spain.

Max Planck Partner Group headed by Rafael Muñoz-Espí (Third from the right)

The cooperation takes place within the Partner Group Program of the Max Planck Society (MPG). Partner Groups can be set up with an institute abroad with the proviso that, following a research residency at a Max Planck Institute, top junior scientists (post docs) return to a leading and appropriately-equipped laboratory in their home country and carry out further research on a subject that is also in the interests of their previous host Max Planck institute. The work of the Partner Groups is evaluated after three years and provided the evaluation is positive, can be extended to five years.

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