Born in L'Escala (Girona) in 1976. He graduated in chemistry at the Universitat de Girona and obtained his PhD in materials science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona & Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona. He then moved to Northwestern University, where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Chad A. Mirkin. He moved back to the Institut Català de Nanotecnologia (ICN) thanks to a Ramón y Cajal contract, where he founded the Supramolecular NanoChemistry & Materials Group. Since September 2011 he is ICREA Research Professor and Group Leader at the Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2). He is a recipient of European Research Council (ERC) Advanced, Consolidator and PoC Grants.
Research interests
My research interests are focused on controlling the assembly -Supramolecular Chemistry- of molecules, metal ions and nanoparticles for the creation of functional nanostructured materials -Nanotechnology- with empty spaces; and use them to encapsulate, store, separate, react and deliver molecules of interest. My main contributions are in the fields of nanoporous Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), Covalent-Organic Frameworks (COFs), Metal-Organic Polyhedra (MOPs) and Delivery Systems for applications in myriad areas, including Energy (e.g. gas storage), Catalysis, the Environment (e.g. pollutant removal, CO2 storage), Encapsulation (e.g. long-lasting fragrances), and Life Science –Medicine and animals health– (e.g. drug-delivery systems and contrast agents).
Selected publications
- Ruiz-Relano S, Nam D, Albalad J, Cortés-Martínez A, Juanhuix J, Imaz I & Maspoch D 2024, 'Synthesis of metal-organic cages via orthogonal bond cleavage in 3D metal-organic frameworks', Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 146, no. 39, pp. 26603-26608.
- Fonseca J, Cano-Sarabia M, Cortés P, Saldo J, Montpeyó D, Lorenzo J, Llagostera M, Imaz I & Maspoch D 2024, 'Metal-Organic Framework-Based Antimicrobial Touch Surfaces to Prevent Cross-Contamination', Advanced Materials, pp. 2403813.
- Nam D, Albalad J, Sánchez-Naya R, Ruiz-Relaño S, Cortés-Martínez A, Yang Y, Juanhuix J, Imaz I & Maspoch D 2024, 'Isolation of the secondary building unit of a 3D metal-organic framework through clip-off chemistry, and its reuse to synthesize new frameworks by dynamic covalent chemistry', Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 146, no. 40, pp. 27255-27261.
- Meng L, Fonseca J, Sánchez-Naya R, Ghadiri AM, Imaz I & Maspoch D 2024, 'Coassembly of complementary polyhedral metal-organic framework particles into binary ordered superstructures', Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 146, no. 31, pp. 21225-21230.
- von Baeckmann C et al. 2024, 'Porous and meltable metal-organic polyhedra for the generation and shaping of porous mixed-matrix composites', J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 146, 7159.
- Cortés-Martínez A, von Baeckmann C, Hernández-López L, Carné-Sánchez A & Maspoch D 2024, 'Giant oligomeric porous cage-based molecules', Chemical Science, vol. 15, pp. 7992-7998.
Selected research activities
2024 Hermanos Elhuyar Hans Goldschmidt Lecture awarded by the German Chemical Society (GDCh)