Applied Computer Modelling Group @CICECO

Manuel has been working in CICECO since april 2016. In CICECO, he leads and nucleates a young group focused in understanding and rationalizing interesting experimental problems. Manuel's main research line is to develop and apply computer models to rationalize, explain or predict a large variety of experimental data in carbon-based materials and nanomaterials, like carbon nanotubes, graphene, fullerenes, graphene nanoribbons, nanohorns, etc.  

 Research summary

Multidisciplinary education involving chemistry, materials science and physics in Spain, Italy and the UK. Several years of research in Italy and Portugal applying and developing state of the art computer models for physics, chemistry and nanotechnology. This resulted in several publications in the above fields with an added impact factor > of 300 and more than 30% as first/corresponding author.

Publication Summary

Several articles in a variety of high impact factor journals such as:

Nature Nanotechnology* (x1); Nature Communications* (x1); Angewandte Chemie (x1); J. Am. Chem. Soc. (x3); Nano Letters* (x2); PNAS (x1); BioMaterials (x1); NanoScale (x1); Small (x1); ACS Appl Mater Interfaces (x1); Chem. Comm.* (x4); Organic Letters* (x4); Chem. Eur. J. (x2);  Carbon (x1); Environmental Microbiology (x1); J. Chem. Theo. Comp. (x2); Journal of Materials Chemistry C (x1) among others.

*: corresponding author

CV

Manuel Melle-Franco got a 5 year physical chemistry degree from University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and an M.Sc. in materials chemistry from University of Kent (UK), where he also pursued a Ph.D. Manuel spent one year in University of Milano-Biccoca and  got his Ph.D. in 2001 in chemical physics. After that, he worked in the department of chemistry of University of Bologna for 8 years, and later he moved to Portugal, where he worked in University of Porto, and University of Minho.

1. Carini, Marco, Marta P. Ruiz, Imanol Usabiaga, José A. Fernández, Emilio J. Cocinero, Manuel Melle-Franco, Ismael Diez-Perez, and Aurelio Mateo-Alonso. “High Conductance Values in π-Folded Molecular Junctions.” Nature Communications 8 (May 18, 2017): 15195. doi:10.1038/ncomms15195. IF=11.3. 
2. Marco, A. Belen, Diego Cortizo-Lacalle, Iñigo Perez-Miqueo, Giovanni Valenti, Alessandro Boni, Jan Plas, Karol Strutyński, et al. “Twisted Aromatic Frameworks: Readily Exfoliable and Solution-Processable Two-Dimensional Conjugated Microporous Polymers.” Angewandte Chemie International Edition, January 1, 2017, in-press. doi:10.1002/anie.201700271. IF=11.7.
3. Melle-Franco, Manuel. “Graphene Fragments: When 1 + 1 Is Odd.” Nature Nanotechnology advance online publication (February 13, 2017). doi:10.1038/nnano.2017.9. IF=35.3.
4. Dallavalle, M., Calvaresi, M., Bottoni, A., Melle-Franco, M., Zerbetto, F., “Graphene Can Wreak Havoc with Cell Membranes” ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 7, no. 7 (February 25, 2015): 4406–14, doi:10.1021/am508938u. IF=6.72. 
5. Melle-Franco, M., “Uthrene, a Radically New Molecule?” Chemical Communications 51, no. 25 (2015): 5387–90, doi:10.1039/C5CC01276G. IF=6.3.
6. More, S., Choudhary, S., Higelin, A., Krossing, I., Melle-Franco, M., Mateo-Alonso, A., “Twisted Pyrene-Fused Azaacenes” Chemical Communications 50, no. 16 (January 28, 2014): 1976–79, doi:10.1039/C3CC48742C. IF=6.34.
7. Höfinger, S., Melle-Franco, M., Gallo, T., Cantelli, A., Calvaresi, M., Gomes, J.A.N.F., Zerbetto, F., “A Computational Analysis of the Insertion of Carbon Nanotubes into Cellular Membranes” Biomaterials 32, no. 29 (October 2011): 7079–85, doi:10.1016/j.biomaterials.2011.06.011. IF=8.56.
8. Paolucci, D., Melle-Franco, M., Iurlo, M., Marcaccio, M., Prato, M., Zerbetto, F., Pénicaud, A., Paolucci, F., “Singling out the Electrochemistry of Individual Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes in Solution,” Journal of the American Chemical Society 130, no. 23 (2008): 7393–99, doi:10.1021/ja710625p. IF=12.1.
9. Bellarosa, L., Bakalis, E., Melle-Franco, M., Zerbetto, F., “Interactions in Concentric Carbon Nanotubes: The Radius vs the Chirality Angle Contributions” Nano Letters 6, no. 9 (2006): 1950–54, doi:10.1021/nl061066g. IF=13.6.
10. Melle-Franco, M., Zerbetto, F., “Ejection Dynamics of a Simple Liquid from Individual Carbon Nanotube Nozzles” Nano Letters 6, no. 5 (May 2006): 969–72, doi:10.1021/nl060154y. IF=13.6.
11. Melle-Franco, M., Marcaccio, M., Paolucci, D., Paolucci, F., Georgakilas, V., Guldi, D.M., “Cyclic Voltammetry and Bulk Electronic Properties of Soluble Carbon Nanotubes” Journal of the American Chemical Society 126, no. 6 (2004): 1646–47, doi:10.1021/ja039918r. IF=12.1.

FET 2D-INK project: 01/01/2016- 

 2D-INK is a European project targeted at developing inks of novel 2D semiconducting materials for low-cost large-area fabrication processes on insulating substrates through a new methodology, which will exceed the properties of state-of-the-art graphene- and graphene oxide based inks.etc.

This project has received funding from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 as a Future and Emerging Technologies Action (FET Open).

For more details: