The 4th Molecular Materials Meeting (M3) @ Singapore

Abstract

The Molecular Materials Meeting (M3) @ Singapore is only four years old, but growing rapidly. Some 300 scientists and students from 20 countries gathered at Biopolis in Singapore from 14 to 16 January 2014 to exchange ideas on the latest developments of molecular materials research and technology (Fig. 1). The presentations at this M3 conference mainly focussed on the themes of Sustainable Technology, Energy and Additive Manufacturing (STEAM), Advanced Materials Technology (AMT), Materials for Healthcare and Lifestyle (MHL), as well as Food Science and Technology (FST). The three-day conference was concluded with a banquet dinner in a wellknown Chinese restaurant in the downtown area with good food and wine. The five best poster presentations were selected by a dedicated panel comprising plenary speakers, editors, and senior professors, and prizes were presented to the winning junior researchers and students at the banquet. The evening provided an ideal networking opportunity for everyone.The previous three commemorative editions of the M3@Singapore conferences in the Australian Journal of Chemistry were well-received by the scientific community with good citations. The first edition [Aust. J. Chem. 2011, 64 (9)] published papers covering diverse topics, e.g. atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP)-based functional amphiphilic polymers synthesis, [1] temperature-driven self-organization of molecules, [2] metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), [3] aggregation-induced emission (AIE) bioimaging, [4] nanoparticlecatalyzed water-splitting, [5] dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC), [6] etc. The second edition [Aust. J. Chem. 2012, 65 (9)] featured contributions on research in nanoparticles and organic semiconductor materials. [7] It covered the harnessing of nanotechnology for new applications, e.g. electro-responsive core-shell nanoparticles for rheology tuning, [8] chitosan-coated Au/Pd alloy nanoparticles and nanoclusters as catalysts for aerobic oxidative homocoupling reactions, [9] carbon nanotube-based materials to catalyze fuel cell reactions, [10] and CdTe-based hybrid fibres to enable low-voltage-driven electroluminescence devices. [11] In the area of organic semiconductor research, the edition focussed on the structure-property relationship that leads to design and synthesis of high performance molecular materials, e.g. heterocyclic dyes for efficient DSSCs, [12] phenyl-1H-pyrrole end-capped thiophenes for organic field-effect transistors (OFET), [13] and pyridine-bearing dihexylquaterthiophene as the blue emitter for organic lightemitting diodes (OLED). [14] The third edition [Aust. J. Chem.