José M. Serra, research professor at CSIC, is the new director of the Instituto de Tecnología Química (ITQ)
Prof. Serra leads the Energy Conversion and Storage Group of the Valencian research centre, and has nearly thirty patents in the field of catalysis and energy. He succeeds Fernando Rey García, also a research professor at CSIC, who was the head of the institute during the last eight years.
José Manuel Serra Alfaro (València, 1976) carried out his doctoral thesis at the Instituto de Tecnología Química under the supervision of Professor Avelino Corma, in collaboration with the Institute Français du Petrole. His thesis focused on the development of new tools for combinatorial catalysis and their application in obtaining and optimizing new industrial catalysts.
He did a two-year postdoctoral stay at the German multidisciplinary research centre Forschungszentrum Jülich, where he worked on the development of nanostructured cathodes for SOFCs (devices that produce electricity by oxidizing a fuel), as well as ion-conducting membranes. In 2006 he returned to ITQ Valencia, where he is currently in charge of the institute’s line of research on fuel cells and ion-conducting membranes, leading the ITQ Energy Conversion and Storage Group.
His scientific activity focuses on the application of catalysis and materials science to the development of components for fuel cells and solid oxide electrolysers, with special attention to the design and characterization of new electrocatalysts, as well as the development of mixed ionic-electronic conductive membranes for oxygen and hydrogen separation and for its application as catalytic membrane reactors.
Serra is co-author of more than 190 research articles published in scientific journals, 18 book chapters and 27 patents in the field of catalysis and energy. He represents CSIC in the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), the largest European research program on energy, in the area of Basic Science for Energy Joint Program (AMPEA); and has coordinated the white paper “Clean, safe and efficient energy”, which focuses on one of the main challenges that CSIC seeks to give a response in the near future.
He has participated in five research projects of the 7th European Research Framework Program related to ionic membranes and fuel cells, and currently leads the participation of the ITQ in another 3 projects of the current Horizon 2020 program. He is the founder of the spin-off KERIONICS, which focuses in the development of ceramic membrane systems for oxygen generation applied to decarbonization processes.
He has received several awards throughout his scientific career, such as the ExxonMobil Chemical European Science and Engineering Award (2005); Christian Friedrich Schönbein Contribution to Science Medal, awarded by the European Fuel Cell Forum (2009); ECerS Young Scientist Award, granted by the European Ceramic Society (2015); Juan López de Peñalver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering (2016); and Air Liquide Grand Challenge Scientific Award. Lower-CO2 H2 (2018).
