Alessandra de Marcos Galán defenderá su tesis doctoral «Influencia de la estructura zeolítica en la estabilización de especies de plata y su interacción con moléculas adsorbidas»:

• 12 de mayo de 2025 (10:30h)
• Salón de Actos del ITQ (UPV-CSIC)

Más información

Directora: Teresa Blasco Lanzuela

Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Química Sostenible

Carmen Tebar Soler defenderá su tesis doctoral «Desarrollo de catalizadores eficientes para la obtención de metano a partir de CO2»: 

• 6 de mayo de 2025 (12h)
• Salón de Actos del ITQ (UPV-CSIC)

Más información

Directora: Patricia Concepción Heydorn

Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Química Sostenible

¡Os invitamos a una nueva sesión de ITQ Severo Ochoa Lecture!

El próximo jueves 24 de abril contaremos con la Prof. Beata Tryba y el Prof. Jacek Przepiórski de la West Pomeranian University of Technology (Szczecin, Poland) quienes impartirán la charla «Photocatalytic and sorption materials for water and air treatment».

• Jueves 24 de abril de 2025 (12:30h)
• Salón de Actos del ITQ (UPV-CSIC)

Prof. Beata Tryba

Prof. Beata Tryba is a researcher employed at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, Poland, since 2000. She works in the field of water treatment technology and photocatalysis. She has studied various sorption materials, such as activated carbon and exfoliated graphite for water treatment and TiO₂-based photocatalytic materials for environmental applications, such as photocatalytic paints, bacterial inactivation, hydrogen generation, air and water purification. For 2 and a half years she worked in a Japanese group as a postdoctoral student and developed TiO₂ materials coated with carbon, later also modified with iron species. TiO₂-coated carbon materials showed comprehensive properties, such as high adsorption capacity and photocatalytic activity, and those modified with iron were additionally active in the photo-Fenton process and generated a large amount of hydroxyl radicals. Prof. Beata Tryba worked in the COST project “Phonasum” (Photocatalytic Technologies and New Nano-Surface Materials – Critical Issues) in the years 2006-2010. During her work in this project she visited CSIC – Instituto de Catálisis y Petroleoquímica in Madrid (Spain) for two weeks (STSM program) and worked with Prof. Jose Conesa on the topic of radical detection by EPR technique. Currently, prof. Beata Tryba is the head of the NCN (National Science Center) project “Research on photocatalytic decomposition of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a fluidized bed reactor”. Another research area carried out in prof. Tryba’s group is the study of photocatalytic composites based on metal foams and TiO₂. These are very promising materials that have shown high photocatalytic activity towards removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Prof. Jacek Przepiórski

Prof. Jacek Przepiórski, since 1998 is a scientist and academic teacher at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin. He specializes in carbon materials in terms of their use for gas and liquid purification and in catalysis, including photocatalysis. His main interests include hybrid porous materials, some aspects of coating formation, phenomena accompanying chemical processes and photocatalysis. He prefers innovative and unconventional approaches to problems in materials science and chemical engineering. He obtained his PhD in Japan (1998) and worked there as a post-doc (NEDO, AIST), mainly on the development of highly effective sorption materials for gas purification and on the unconventional introduction of dopants to solid materials. Internationally he cooperated mainly with Japanese teams (prof. A. Oya, M. Inagaki, M. Toyoda) and Spanish teams (Prof. Elena Perez-Mayoral, UNED). After 8 years as vice-rector, he recently returned to intensive research activities, implementing a project related to photocatalytic conversion of siloxanes in water. He works closely with Prof. B. Tryba, and recently with researchers from ITQ, which resulted in submitting a project to the Horizon program, submitting a publication and starting work on further ones. He works closely with industry, mainly as an advisor and solving various operational problems.

El viernes 28 de febrero de 2025 tendrá lugar la segunda jornada ITQ Severo Ochoa Lecture de 2025.

Concretamente contaremos con Shweta Agarwala quien impartirá la charla «A New Library of Green and Sustainable Electronic Materials» a las 11:30h en el Salón de Actos del ITQ (UPV-CSIC).

Más sobre Shweta Agarwala

Shweta Agarwala is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering at Aarhus University, Denmark, where she leads the pioneering Printed Electronics Technology Laboratory. Her work bridges disciplines, focusing on the development of sustainable electronic materials and devices, with a vision to drive environmental responsibility in electronics through the creation of fully biodegradable and flexible devices.

She completed her Master’s degree at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and earned her PhD from the National University of Singapore. She further honed her expertise in printed electronics at the Singapore Centre for 3D Printing before transitioning to her role in Denmark. An active contributor to the scientific community, Shweta has authored over 70 peer-reviewed publications in prestigious journals, books, and conferences. She is a senior IEEE member and Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering, Denmark Section, where she is dedicated to advancing gender diversity in engineering,

A New Library of Green and Sustainable Electronic Materials

The rapid proliferation of electronic devices has exacerbated the global e-waste crisis, necessitating a paradigm shift toward sustainable materials and manufacturing processes. Our research group is addressing this challenge by developing a comprehensive library of biodegradable and environmentally friendly electronic materials, including piezoelectrics, conductors, insulators, and, most recently, biodegradable metals. Inspired by nature and guided by principles of green chemistry, we engineer material microstructures to impart and enhance electronic functionalities while ensuring full biodegradability. These materials are formulated into functional inks suitable for printing on unconventional substrates, enabling low-energy and scalable fabrication of electronic devices.

Our approach integrates bio-derived polymers, ionic conductors, and metallic precursors to create high-performance electronic components that naturally degrade without harmful residues. The developed material platform is particularly suited for healthcare applications, where we are advancing biodegradable devices for muscle atrophy monitoring, wound healing, and eczema treatment. By bridging sustainable materials innovation with functional electronics, our work paves the way for the next generation of transient and eco-friendly electronic systems.

Acabamos febrero con una nueva edición de ITQ Talks!

En esta ocasión, Prof. Will Medlin será el encargado de dar la charla «Organic modification of metals and metal oxides for selective catalysis«.

• Miércoles 26 de febrero de 2025
• Salón de Actos del ITQ (UPV-CSIC) a las 11:00h.

Organic modification of metals and metal oxides for selective catalysis

Composite inorganic materials are frequently used to catalyze large-scale industrial reactions. Identifying materials that are active and selective for specific reactions is important not only for making improvements to existing chemical processes, but also for designing new routes to a sustainable energy economy. A common structure for solid catalysts is for metal nanoparticles—often considered the active component—to be dispersed onto high-surface area metal oxides. However, it has become increasingly apparent that the role of the metal oxide can extend far beyond being a simple carrier for the metal nanoparticles; sites at the interface between the metal and metal oxide exhibit much faster rates for processes such as CO₂ thermal reduction and upgrading of biomass-derived sugars. The chemistry at metal-metal oxide interfaces is often complex and poorly understood, and mechanisms for achieving additional control over catalyst performance are desired.

One alternative or complementary method for tailoring a catalytic interface is modification with organic ligands. Such ligands in fact are widely employed as surfactants in the synthesis of metal nanoparticles. Numerous studies have shown that leaving these ligands in place can have beneficial effects for catalyst performance, especially related to controlling selectivity toward desired products. Thus, one approach toward controlling selectivity in catalysis is to systematically design these encapsulating ligands to impart selectivity. The presentation will demonstrate how modification of catalysts like Pt/TiO₂ with ligands can lead to vast changes in desired product yield.

As an alternative to depositing organic monolayers on the metal nanoparticles, it is also possible to deposit them on the oxide support. Support modification is especially attractive for reactions in which rates are dominated by sites at the metal – support interface. By varying the structure and chemical functionality of the organic ligands, one can hypothetically improve catalyst activity, selectivity, and stability in reactions such as CO₂ hydrogenation and the hydrodeoxygenation of biomass-derived oxygenates. This presentation will describe use of different components of the organic ligands—the “head” group that covalently attaches to the support and the “tail” organic function—to control selectivity in reactions at surfaces. It will also discuss the use of organic monolayers as precursors to well-defined (and more thermally stable) inorganic surfaces.

Más sobre Will Medlin

Will Medlin received his BS degree in chemical engineering from Clemson University. He received his PhD from the University of Delaware.  After conducting postdoctoral research at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, he joined the faculty of the University of Colorado, where he now serves as Denver Business Challenge Endowed Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering.  His research focuses on the design of solid catalysts for energy and environmental applications.  His work has emphasized catalyst surface modification using organic self-assembled monolayers or inorganic thin films to enhance control over catalyst surface and near-surface properties.  Prof. Medlin has published approximately 160 peer-reviewed papers.  He has received several research and teaching awards, such as the NSF CAREER and AIChE Himmelblau Awards.  He has been a visiting professor at ETH-Zurich and the Chalmers University of Technology, is an Associate Editor for the journal Catalysis Science and Technology, and is the chair-elect of the ACS Catalysis division. He has also been active in producing educational tools for the widely used web site learncheme.com.

http://www.colorado.edu/chbe/j-will-medlin