We warmly welcome our new PhD students Vincenzo Tedeschi, Riccardo Ciciriello and Enrico Scelsi to join our group!

We are pleased to share our latest publication on Journal of the American Chemical Society!
Singlet diradicaloids are emerging as a promising class of molecular materials due to their potential multiple applications in several fields. In this work we reported comprehensive investigation of the photoinduced processes and mechanisms linked to the outstanding luminescence of a novel singlet diradicaloid based on the Thiele hydrocarbon backbone. Its fluorescence arises from the low-lying dark doubly excited zwitterionic state, typically found in diradicaloids, with a mechanism similar to sudden polarization, which typically occurs in olefins.

More info: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c05251

We are thrilled to share our recent publication on Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics!
Silk Fibroin (SF) is an exceptionally versatile biopolymer that can be modified using a wide range of chemical techniques, imparting tailored chemical-physical properties to the material. In this paper, we present a systematic investigation of various methods for grafting long alkyl chains onto SF with the aim of modulating its hydrophobic behavior.

Read the full text of the article at
https://doi.org/10.1002/macp.202300145

We are pleased to share our latest publication on Molecular Sciences!
This study investigates the ethanolic extract of dried walnut shells upon hammer milling (HM) and ball milling (BM) grinding processes. This research work provides valuable information that highlights the significance of physical pre-treatments, such as mill grinding, in shaping the composition of extracts, with potential applications in the biorefinery or pharmaceutical industries.

Read the full text of the article at:
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241713059

Prof. Farinola represented the Società Chimica Italiana at the IUPAC|CHAINS2023 congress held in The Hague, Netherlands.
This was a world meeting full of very important insights with chemists from both academia and industry, and a very interesting topic was the impact of all disciplines of chemistry on society.


For more info please visit: https://iupac.org/event/iupac-world-chemistry-congress-2023/

We are deeply thankful to the Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, a nationwide Italian newspaper that has recently published a popular article about our work with diatom microalgae.

It is our honour to be able to reach a wider public and introduce them to our work, such as producing new biomaterials based on diatoms biosilica for different applications, ranging from optoelectronics to drug delivery and bioremediation.

We are pleased to share our latest publication on ACS Omega!
In this study, we present the elucidation of the structure of regenerated Silk fibroin (SF) using Lanthanide ions as chaotropic agents. This investigation is carried out using a combination of Raman spectroscopy, wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS), and solid-state NMR techniques.

Read the full text of the article at
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.2c07149

We’re glad to announce a new publication on ChemBioChem journal!
Living diatoms are promising candidates for the eco-friendly removal of toxic contaminants. Here we demonstrate the stabilization of a diatom biofilm on a glassy surface protruding boronic acid moieties groups thanks to the interaction with vicinal diols of diatoms extracellular polysaccharides. This system, resistant to mechanical stress, has been tested for the removal of metal ions (As, Cr, Cu, Zn, Sn, Pb, Sb) in model-polluted seawater samples.

https://doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202300284

Join us for two exciting science evenings with Prof. Gianluca Farinola on May 22nd and Dr. Davide Blasi on May 23rd.
Let's come together to celebrate science, knowledge, and the power of curiosity.
We hope to see you there!
For further information, please check here: https://pintofscience.it/events/bari

We are pleased to welcome Abraham Abe, the new Post-Doctoral Researcher of our group. His research activity focuses on the “development of innovative formulations of emulsifiable fluids of low environmental impact” by deriving triglycerides from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste via superfluid extraction.

We are thrilled to announce that Gianfranco has successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in Chemical and Molecular Sciences and has officially earned his doctorate. We are incredibly proud of his hard work and dedication to his research, and we can't wait to see what he will accomplish in the future.
Congratulations on this outstanding achievement, Gianfranco!

Our latest work on organic chiral materials, performed in collaboration with Lorenzo Di Bari's group of University of Pisa, has been accepted on Chemistry - A European Journal!
We studied the impact of achiral substituents on the chiral supramolecular architectures of diketopyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole–1,2,3-1H-triazole (DPP) dyes. The same chiral DPP motif was decorated with three different achiral substituents on the nitrogen atoms of lactam moiety: the hydrophobic n-octyl alkyl chain, the hydrophilic triethylene glycol (TEG) chain and the thermo-cleavable t-butoxycarbonyl (t-Boc) carbamate group. In spite of identical π-conjugated chromophore and chiral appendage, in aggregated form these three dyes displayed profoundly different optical, chiroptical, electrochemical and thermal features. As the typical enantiopure alkyl chains from natural sources used for this purpose are quite limited, the possibility of modulating chiroptical properties of π-conjugated systems by keeping the same chiral appendage is a very important point.

Read the full text of the article at https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202300291

A very warm welcome to Ambra Fiore, our new Assistant Professor in Organic Chemistry. She currently works on the synthesis of organic molecules with optoelectronic and magnetic properties.

Three PhD students from our research group are participating in E-WISPOC 2023. In the poster session, Alessandro Digregorio, Mariella Marangi and Matteo Martina presented their work. Matteo was also invited to present his work in a Flash Talk and Alessandro won the Poster Award!

It’s a pleasure to share our new publication on EurJOC: for the first time the electro-optical properties of a highly fluorinated trityl radical were studied, achieving the most blue-shifted emission for a trityl radical reported in literature up to now.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.202201030

Our PhD student Cesar Vicente-Garcia has participated in the “Festival della Scienza 2022” at Genoa, along with the other members of the BEEP ITN. Our workshop “Communicare con la luce - colori strutturali sottomarini” or “To communicate with light – structural colors underwater” has brought closer to the public beautiful phenomena such as structural color or fluorescence, that can be found in many organisms, both on land and underwater.

We are glad to share our new paper, published on Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews: in this work a detailed study on the ethanosolv lignin fractionation from endocarps of walnut and pistachio, aiming at understanding the role played by the ball milling (BM) pretreatment, is presented.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17518253.2022.2143244

Our group has hosted the “BEEP Summer School” this September at the very special location of Santa Maria al Bagno. We have finally had the opportunity to meet in person and share everybody’s work and ideas. Different activities have taken place: progress reports, meetings, invited speakers’ talks, workshops and even some friendly competitions.

The FarinolaGroup is present in Lisbon for participating in the EuChemS Chemistry Congres with four oral communication! Prof. Gianluca Farinola showed all the powerful opportunities of functional biohybrid nanomaterials from diatoms microalgae recently developed in our group, our Post-Doc Gianluigi Albano presented his last results on the IR irradiation-promoted Pd-catalyzed cross-dehydrogenative coupling, our PhD student Gianfranco Decandia presented our recent work on IR-assisted direct arylation reactions during the "Green Chemistry" session and the last oral communication of the group: our Post-Doc Giorgio Rizzo showed our recent results on the synthesis, characterization and polymerization of fluorinated dopamine in the "Supramolecular Chemistry" session.

Our Post-Doc Gianluigi Albano received the "Flavio Bonati Prize 2022" of Italian Chemical Society at the Internationale Conference of Coordination Chemistry in Rimini, as the best Italian under-35 researcher in the field of Organometallic Chemistry!