4^th International Conference on Bioinspired and Biobased Chemistry & Materials (N.I.C.E. 2018)

Our nature has evolved for billions of years and it developed products, materials, and processes that could solve many of the challenges that we are confronting in the present time. Humans have taken inspiration from nature to engineer artificial materials that produce new solutions and opportunities for different applications ranging from environmental, medical, energy, to industrial. The aim of the 4^th International Conference on Bioinspired and Biobased Chemistry & Materials (NICE 2018 Conference) is to provide a venue to experts, researchers, managers, manufacturers and policy-makers from various countries and with different scientific backgrounds, for the exchange of ideas, open discussion of current research problems and the development of new ideas and collaborations aimed at finding eco-friendly, green, sustainable solutions to materials challenges that will have a lasting impact for generations.

In this 4^th edition of NICE conference, we had collected 334 papers and hosted over 500 participants from 49 countries at the Hotel Le Negresco, Nice, France on 14–17 October 2018. There were 4 plenary talks, 91 keynote talks, with 139 oral presentations, and 100 poster presentations under 9 main symposia, namely (with the corresponding symposium chairs): NanoTech (Caroline Szczepanski – USA and Thierry Darmanin – France), BioTech (Thierry Darmanin – France), SmartTech (Caroline Szczepanski – USA and Thierry Darmanin – France), Bioinspired Chemistry and Materials for Sustainable Energy (Valentine Vullev – USA), Biomass Valorization: Catalysis, New Materials, and Applications – HUGS (Nathanaël Guigo – France and Ed de Jong – Netherlands), Bioinspired 2D and 3D Molecular and Hybrid Architecture (Anne Gaucher – France and Damien Prim – France), Plasma and Laser Processing of Bioinspired and Biobased Materials – PLASMAT2018 (Hernando S. Salapare III – Philippines, France), 3D Printing of Bioinspired Materials (Arnaud Zenerino – France, Guillaume Cabrié – France, Frédéric Prate – France, and Laurianne Alaouchiche – France), and Bio-inspired Adhesion (Kalina Raskin – France and Laura Magro – France). A special interactive workshop on “Wetting” was also conducted by Abraham Marmur – Israel, Alidad Amirfazli – Canada, and Anish Tuteja – USA. During the closing ceremony, the attendees of the conference were informed that the 5^th edition of NICE conference will be held on October 2020 in the same venue. Five student prizes were also awarded to the following: (1) Best Poster Award for a Young Investigator (Biomimetics)- Léo Clerc (France); (2) Best Poster Award – NanoTech (Nanoscale) – Randy Mujica (France); (3) Best Poster Award – BioTech (Green Chemistry) – Frankje de Boer (Netherlands); (4) Best Poster Award – SmartTech (Molecular Systems Design & Engineering) – Hui Xian Gan (Singapore); and (5) Best Oral Communication (PLASMAT 2018) – Sameer F. Hamad (United Kingdom).

For this special issue, we collected 9 high quality and breaking research papers on bioinspired and biobased chemistry and materials that were presented as keynote talks. Sathanikan et al. prepared poly(3,4-ethylenedioxypyrrole) films using bioinspired approach to attain parahydrophobic properties. Seco et al. synthesized a pH-, light-, and redox-responsive flavylium-bipyridinium molecular dyad inspired by natural anthocyanins that was used to devise a pseudorotaxane formed from a cucurbit[7]uril (CB7) wheel. Skonieczny et al. presented how to make biomimetic and bioinspired molecular electrets and answered the question why the established peptide chemistry doesn’t always work for making molecular electrets. Smith McWilliams et al. synthesized 8 fluorescent surfactants by attaching aliphatic chains of 6, 10, 12, or 16 carbons to the common fluorescent dyes such as Rhodamine B and Eosin Y. Silva et al. developed chromophores that are inspired by the colors of fruit, flowers, and wine. Largeron made a minireview on the design of bioinspired quinone-based catalysts for the aerobic oxidation of amines to imines. Luo et al. presented an alternative vapor sensing mechanism from the dynamic process of molecular desorption from butterfly wings. Gonçalves et al. investigated the mechanism of antioxidant action of phenolic betalain and showed that the meta isomer has more antiradical capacity than most natural betalains. Weber and Bechelany presented the atomic layer deposition (ALD) route and its use for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles (NPs), and they also showed the combination of ALD grown NPs and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for gas separation and catalysis applications.

Lastly, we would like to thank all the speakers and attendees, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the European Material Research Society (E-MRS) for the endorsements, the Editors of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the sponsors and partners, and the organizing and scientific committee for their contribution to the success of NICE 2018.