The project BiogasPLUS, led by members of our group, has recently received renewed financial support and recognition. Encouraged by the Entrepreneurs Fund of Fundación Repsol, the project was presented to the Fourth Call of the Ibero-American Awards to Innovation and Entrepreneurship – organized by the Secretaría General Iberoamericana (SEGIB).

SEGIB is an international organization devoted to strengthen the cooperation between all Ibero-American countries, in what comes to economics, politics and culture. Within this framework, these awards recognize innovation-driven entrepreneurial companies (whether already established or in their initial project stage) led by young teams in Latinamerica, Spain or Portugal.

BiogasPLUS obtained the 2nd award in the “Projects” category, one of the five awards given in this edition of the call. The awarding ceremony took place in Panama City on October 17, 2013, as part of the events of the “IX Encuentro Empresarial Iberoamericano”, and was attended by Enrique Iglesias (Secretary-General of SEGIB), Antonio Brufau (CEO of Repsol) and HRH Felipe, Prince of Asturias (Spain).

Official info (in Spanish):

SEGIB Awards 2013 announcement: http://segib.org/es/node/8958

Awarding Ceremony at the “IX Encuentro Empresarial Iberoamericano”: http://eeipanama.com/segib-entrega-premios-en-el-marco-del-encuentro-empresarial/

Also highlighted in the news of the Entrepreneurs Fund (in English).

Acknowledging the fact that nanoparticles existed before “nanotechnology” as such entered our mindsets, is very important to properly understand and handle nanomaterials, particularly in today’s debates on nanomaterials regulation: what is a nanomaterial? How and when should be labelled, regulated and tested?

Additionally, to bring nano closer to society, a long-time running aim of NanoWiki, the ebook presents some hands-on experiments, that can easily show nanoscale phenomena to the general audience.

The book was developed with the participation of Josep Saldaña and Joan Escofet from the NanoWiki team, through support from ICN, NanoAraCat and the CNBSS. The images that ilustrate the book are as always the result of scientific work with transmission and scanning electron microscopies, this time mainly onto self assembled monolayers of cobalt nanoparticles (also gold and different oxides). But this year, many of the images come from the “Nano Forest”, an impressive 3D virtual world based on these images, created in SecondLife by collective HaxGrot (Ux Hax, Maria Grot and Romi Nayar in collaboration with Lanjran Choche).

The other previous ebooks on the NanoWiki series were ‘Balancing the promises’ (2010) and ‘Engines On’ (2011). You can find more information in our section devoted to the NanoWiki project.

In the article entitled “We will be able to determine whether one has cancer using breath” (“Amb l’alè es podrà saber si un té càncer de pulmó”), Prof. Puntes and journalist Lluís Martínez started discussing about nanotechnology, then moving to science in general, its promises and limits for the future.

Link to the online version of the article (in Catalan): http://www.elpuntavui.cat/noticia/article/2-societat/15-ciencia/600311-amb-lale-es-podra-saber-si-un-te-cancer-de-pulmo.html

[Download PDF]

Photo by Josep Losada (El Punt Avui)

Víctor Puntes was interviewed by Pedro Riba in his show “Tierra de Sueños”, which is broadcast by several channels on TV (25TV) and internet, on October 25, 2012. The interview covered many dissemination aspects of nanotechnology and science in general, and it was aired on October 27 at 21:15.

A recording of the interview can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hsne2Jur-k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqHmr76Ht-E

Our participation in the exhibition included:

• The preparation of exhibition materials and devices using nanoparticles and explaining their features.
• The design of experiments and preparation of materials for the educational activities on Nanotechnology carried out by CosmoCaixa: hands-on experiments for high school students and lab exhibitions for the general public.
• Dissemination talks by Prof. Víctor Puntes:

Discovering the nanoworld – October 17, 19h CosmoCaixa Barcelona

Who are we? Where we come from? Where we go to? – November 14, 19.30h, CaixaForum Palma

Discovering the nanoworld – December 4, 19.30h, CosmoCaixa Madrid

Enjoy!

Prof. Puntes gave an invited talk on the safety of nanomaterials at the event “Impacto de la Nanotecnología en la Cosmética” (The impact of nanotechnology in cosmetics), a scientific-technical workshop organized by the Spanish Society of Cosmetic Chemistry (Sociedad Española de Químicos Cosméticos – SEQC), which covered from scientific innovations to regulatory aspects of this new field.

The event took place in Barcelona, Spain, on November 10-11, 2010.

Further details and program:

http://e-seqc.org/actualidad_dt.php?id=549