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Prof. José M. Serra did his Ph.D. work at the Institute of Chemical Technology (ITQ) directed by Prof. A. Corma in collaboration with the Institute Français du Petrole. The thesis involved the development of new tools for combinatorial catalysis and its application in the discovery and optimization of industrial catalysts. After that, he conducted a 2-year postdoctoral stage at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, working on the development of nanostructured SOFC cathodes as well as ion conducting membranes.

In 2006 he joined again ITQ and leads the Energy Conversion and Storage Group, the Fuel Cells and Ionic Membranes research line. The current activities are principally focused on the application of catalysis and materials science in: (a) the development of solid oxide fuel cells components, paying special attention to the design and characterization of new electrocatalysts (principally, cathode materials); and (b) development of mixed ionic-electronic conducting membranes for oxygen and hydrogen separation and catalytic membrane reactor applications. As a result, several works have been published and different patents have been recently filed. He is co-author of more than 175 scientific articles, 17 book chapters, 1 book and 27 patents in the field of catalysis and energy (16 of them licensed to industry).
He was involved in three FP7 EU projects dealing with ionic membranes and proton-conducting fuel cells: EFFIPRO, NASA-OTM, and DEMOYS, and actually he is the coordinator researcher in charge of the European projects GAMER, iCAREPLAST, eCOCO2, WINNER, CO2SMOS, SYMSITES, ALL IN ZERO and AMBHER from the Horizon 2020 programme.

The main research lines are ordered as follows: Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC), lithium batteries and electrochemical reactors: electrocatalysis Ionic membranes, solid state electrochemical devices and catalytic membrane reactors, combinatorial science and catalysis: design and development of processes and equipment for high-throughput screening of materials libraries, heterogeneous catalysis: acid-base, red-ox and multifunctional catalysts, synthesis and characterization of ceramic materials, including mesoporous materials, chemical reactor engineering and process engineering: design and setting-up of chemical reactors and other facilities at bench and pilot scale.

Prof. Serra is the CSIC representative for the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA): Basic Science for Energy Joint Programme (AMPEA), Deputy Coordinator of the subprogram Materials Science in AMPEA. Jose M. Serra plans and coordinates the activities to be developed in the Industrial Decarbonization Area within the thematic and interdisciplinary platform PTI-Trans-ener (CSIC). Jose M. Serra is member of the PWG2 Process Optimisation & CCU (A.SPIRE) and since 2022 is member of the Strategic Innovation Committee (CEI) specialized in Decarbonization from the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI). For his contribution to the field, he has received the ExxonMobil Chemical European Science and Engineering Award 2005, the Spanish Catalysis Society Ph.D. Award 2004, the Christian Friedrich Schönbein Medal 2009, European Ceramic Society Young Scientist Award 2015, Medal of the Royal Spanish Engineering Academy 2016 and Air Liquide Scientific Prize 2018. He is the founder of KERIONICS, the Spin-off which develops ceramic membrane systems for the generation of O2.

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Dr. Sonia Escolástico is a Tenured Scientist at the Instituto de Tecnología Química, ITQ. PhD in 2013 by Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), her work was devoted to gas separation membranes based on mixed ionic conductors and their applications in catalysis. She has co-authored 39 peer-reviewed contributions in international journals, and participated in more than 50 international conferences and national and European research projects, including industry contracts. In 2010, she received the Young Scientist Award by the European Material Research Society. She holds three patents on mixed ionic-electronic conductors based membranes. From 2015 to 2017, Dr. Escolástico joined the Institute for Microprocess Engineering (IMVT) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. In the present, she works in the Energy Conversion and Storage group of ITQ and her main activities deal with catalytic membrane reactors, microreactors and material science.

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Dr. María Balaguer (Chemical Engineer) is a ‘Ramón y Cajal’ Fellow researcher in the Energy Conversion and Storage group. Her main work activities focus on the area of design and characterization of ionic/protonic –electronic materials for electrocatalytic reactors, gas separation and electrolytic cell devices for sustainable energy and synthesis of chemicals and fuels. She completed her PhD in 2013 on the field of ceramic materials for gas separation and received ‘UPV doctoral thesis extraordinary award’. From 2013 to 2016, she joined the group of Materials Synthesis and Processing (IEK-1), in Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, combining the research interest between manufacturing technologies, in particular ice-templating, and development of proton conducting materials for gas separation and catalytic membrane reactors. In 2016, she joined the ITQ back and in 2019 she received a ‘Juan the la Cierva Incorporación’ fellowship. On the cited research areas, she has participated in numerous national and European research projects, industry contracts and scientific conferences, both as researcher and PI. She is the co-author of 45 articles in international peer reviewed journals and 2 patents related to mixed ionic electronic materials and manufacturing of solid oxide devices.

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Dr. Julio García-Fayos (male) has a Degree on Chemical Engineering by the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and PhD in ceramic membranes for O2 separation (2017) and is currently working as Post-doctoral researcher at the Instituto de Tecnología Química (CSIC-UPV). His work is focused on the scientific research in the field of ceramic membranes for the production of oxygen, CO2 capture, and applications in chemical reactions for energy conversion and storage. He is co-author of 23 articles, 1 book chapter and 1 patent. His PhD thesis "Development of ceramic MIEC membranes for oxygen separation: Application in catalytic industrial processes" was awarded with one of the Best Thesis Prizes from the UPV in 2018, and with the Thesis SECV Award in the field of glass and ceramic by the Spanish Society of Ceramics and Glass.

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Dr. Laura Navarrete Algaba is a Post-Doc at the Instituto de Tecnología Química, ITQ. PhD in 2017 by Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). Her activities are focused on materials and electrochemical devices for energy production and storage. She is co-author of 19 papers in international journals, 27 contributions on international conferences and holds 2 patents on membranes and solid oxide materials. From May 2017 to October 2018, Dr. Navarrete worked in Toyota Motor Europe (Brussels) in the division of R&D as new technologies engineer in the development of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. At present, she works in the Energy Conversion and Storage group of ITQ and her main activities are related with materials science, electrochemical devices, catalytic bed reactors and new energy applications.

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David Catalán obtain the Chemical Engineering degree in 2011. In 2013, he started to work in the Instituto de Tecnología Química. PhD in 2019 by Polytechnical University of Valencia, his work was focus on the development of electrodes for proton conducting electrochemical cells and advanced simulations of membrane reactors. He has co-authored of 5 peer-reviewed contributions in international journals, and participated in 10 international conferences and national and European research project, including industry contracts. In the present, he is a postdoc researcher in the Energy Conversion and Storage group and his main activities are focused on advanced modelling about membranes reactors at intermediate and high temperatures.

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Dr. Candela Segarra is a postdoctoral researcher at the Energy Conversion and Storage group of the Instituto de Tecnología Química (ITQ) since 2022. She received a B. Sc. (Honours) in Applied Chemistry by Athlone Institute of Technology (Ireland) in 2007, a B.Sc in Chemistry by Universitat Jaume I (UJI) in 2009, and two M.Sc. in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modeling; and Homogeneous Catalysis by Universitat Jaume I in 2010 and 2011, respectively. In 2011, she was awarded a FPU Fellowship to carry out her PhD on the field of organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis at Universitat Jaume I and received ‘UJI doctoral thesis extraordinary award’ (2014). During her PhD training she accomplished two research stays at University of Münster (Germany) and Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal). In 2015 she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship to be carried out in University College Dublin (Ireland). The same year she moved to University of Bern (Switzerland) to continue her research on redox active ligand complexes in catalysis. In 2017 she joined ITQ, her work was focused on heterogeneous catalysis using multi-site organic-inorganic hybrid catalysts for multi-step chemical processes. During 2021-2022 she participated in the preparation of two H2020 projects, from which one was awarded (ALL-IN Zero). Currently, she works in the Energy Conversion and Storage group of the ITQ, and she combines Research with Project Management, being part of the research and dissemination team of the H2020 projects ALL-IN Zero and Symsites. She is co-author of 14 scientific articles, 1 book chapter, 1 teaching article, and participated in more than 25 international and national conferences. She has participated/organized 4 national conferences. From 2019 she holds the position of Treasurer of the Young Chemical Researchers Group of the RSEQ.

Dr. Sonia Remiro Buenamañana received her B.Sc. (chemistry) at the University of Alcalá (Spain) in 2010. In 2012 she was conferred her M.Sc. by Research diploma in advanced organic chemistry funded by the European Commission under the European Cross-border Cooperation Program INTERREG IV at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. During that period she accomplished a stay at the Institute of Research in Fine Chemistry (IRCOF), France. She received her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of East Anglia in 2015, her doctoral thesis was focused on supramolecular chemistry, organic synthesis and homogeneous catalysis, she also demonstrated the first syntheses of a completely new class of macrocyclic hybrid molecules (SubTBDAPs). In 2016 she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship with a total funding granted as principal investigator of 158 121,60 € to be carried out in ITQ, her project was based on the synthesis and photocatalytic studies of a wide range of photocatalysts for solar fuel production. In 2018 she joined the energy conversion and storage group, her work is focused on heterogeneous catalysis using electrocatalytic membrane reactors, especially on hydrogen production. She co-authored more than 10 high impact international scientific publications and 2 book chapters, and participated in more than 20 international and national conferences. She is currently one of the ITQ dissemination team leaders and has participated / organized more than 50 events for the general public.

ResearchGate

Dr. Alfonso J. Carrillo holds a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering by Universidad de Salamanca (Spain), a M.Sc. in Renewable Energies by Universidad de León (Spain), and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering by Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain). His Ph.D. research was conducted at IMDEA Energy (Spain) focusing on oxides for solar thermochemical energy storage. Then, he moved to the Electrochemical Materials Laboratory, led by Prof. Rupp, to perform his postdoctoral research on redox materials for solar-to-fuel thermochemical conversion, first at ETH Zurich (Switzerland), and after at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT (USA), where he was 2018 Eni-MIT Energy Fellow. He was awarded with the Energy and Environmental Research Grant by Fundación Iberdrola, Juan de la Cierva Formación by the Spanish Ministry of Science, and recently, with a Junior Leader Fellowship by Fundación LaCaixa. He works at the Energy Conversion and Storage group at ITQ since January 2019, with focus on functionalization of redox oxides for energy storage and production of renewable fuels. He is co-author of 15 papers (h-index 9) and 1 book chapter.

ResearchGate

Dr. Maria Siurana is a researcher at the Energy Conversion and Storage group of the Instituto de Tecnología Química (ITQ) since 2018. She received her B.Sc in Chemical Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de València in 2011, a M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Universidad de Alicante in 2012 and a M.Sc. in Mathematics by Universitat Politècnica de València in 2014. In 2017, she defended her PhD, conducted at the Department of Applied Mathematics of the Universitat Politècnica de València. Her PhD research was focused on modelling and heuristic multi-objective optimisation algorithms applied to metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria for production of valuable chemicals. She was awarded a grant of the Faculty Training Program from the Spanish Ministry of Education. During her PhD training she accomplished research stays at the Chemical Engineering at the Life Science Interface (ChELSI) Institute from The University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) and the Experimental and Computational Biology Group from the University of Applied Sciences Mittweida (Germany). She is co-author of two peer-reviewed papers in international journals and participated in more than 15 conferences in the field. Currently, she works at the Energy Conversion and Storage group of ITQ as R&D Project Consultant in the preparation of proposals for competitive calls. So far, she has participated in the preparation of seven H2020 projects, from which two were awarded (iCAREPLAST and eCOCO2).

ResearchGate

Dr. Laura Almar (female, young postdoctoral researcher) is a Post-Doctoral Scientist at the Instituto de Tecnología Química, ITQ. Her research interests and expertise include material science, electrochemistry and 3D tomography techniques of solid-state ionic devices, particularly fuel cells/electrolyzers, gas separation membranes and catalytic membrane reactors. She received her PhD by the Physics Faculty at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) in 2014 carried out at the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC). She performed research stays at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany and Georgia Tech, US. From 2015 to 2019, Dr. Laura Almar joined the Department of Advanced Materials for Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IAM-WET) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. She has co-authored 20 peer-reviewed contributions in international journals and participated in 30 international conferences in the field. At the present, she combines Research with Project Management, being part of the coordination and dissemination team of the H2020 projects iCAREPLAST and eCOCO2.

ResearchGate

Dr. Joaquín Santos Blasco is a post-doctoral researcher at the Instituto de Tecnología Química (ITQ). He has degrees on Physics (2012), Mathematics (2014), master degree on Advanced Physics (2013) and a PhD in Physics (2018), all at Universitat de València (UV). His research interests are diverse, from high-energy physics to solid-state materials and new energy applications. He has worked at Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), where he developed his thesis, and at Instituto para la Instrumentación de Imagen Molecular (I3M) as a post-doc researcher. He is co-author of 10 peer-reviewed articles, has taught above 250h of university courses at UV and Universidad Nacional de Estudios a Distancia (UNED) and has participated in several international conferences.

ResearchGate

Dr. Daniel Herranz is a young postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto de Tecnología Química (ITQ). He obtained the Degree in Chemistry by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) in 2014, including a full year of Erasmus scholarship stay in the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, and finished the Master of Energy and Fuels for the Future from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) the next year. He joined the research group of Prof. Pilar Ocón at UAM working in polymeric membranes for electrochemical devices and finished his PhD in 2019. During the PhD he was awarded with a scholarship from UAM to perform a research stay in the group of Prof. John Varcoe in the University of Surrey, UK, to work in alkaline ion exchange membrane for hydrogen fuel cells. Previously to joining the group of Energy Conversion and Storage group of the ITQ with Dr. Antonio Chica, he performed a one-year postdoctoral research stay in the University of Ariel (Israel) where he focused on the development and testing of electrocatalysts for ammonia production with Prof. Alex Schechter. He has taught 180h at UAM, co-authored 7 articles published in high-impact international journals, one book chapter and has participated in several contributions to congresses and workshops. In the present, he is working at ITQ in the development and testing of polymeric membranes and other basic components of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries in the European project “Demostrador de una batería de flujo redox de 50 kW (BFR-50k)” within the structure of the “PTI+ TransEner” platform. 

ResearchGate

Dr. Fidel Toldrá Reig (ORCID number 0000-0001-6133-7043) is a young postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto de Tecnología Química. He received a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Universitat de València in 2013 (extraordinary degree award from University, Valencian Society of Chemical Engineers and Generalitat Valenciana to Academic Excellence) and a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de València in 2014. His PhD research was conducted at the ITQ (FPU grant awarded by Spanish Government) focusing on the development of new solid-state devices for sensing in collaboration with Sensata Technologies B.V., as well as for other energy-based devices such as fuel cells, electrolyzers or ionic membranes. He performed a research stage at the Imperial College of London. From September 2019 to August 2021, He joined the Laboratoire des Matériaux et du Génie Physique (LMGP-CNRS) as a postdoctoral fellow working in the FET Open project ultra-versatile Structural PRINTing (Sprint). He worked in the development of new material recipes and alternative sintering processes for thin films r oriented to energy energy-based and electronics applications deposited by Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition (SALD). He works at the Energy Conversion and Storage group at the ITQ since September 2021 in the development of materials and thin films for electrochemical devices. He is co-author of 10 papers and 8 book chapters and participated in 19 international and national conferences. He has taught 98 h in the Chemical Engineering degree at the Universitat Politècnica de València and participated in different event for science vulgarization and communication.

ResearchGate

Dr. Cristian Torres Rodríguez obtained the Chemical Engineering degree from Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV) in 2011. In 2012 he moved to Trondheim (Norway) where he worked for several years as research assistant at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in the department of Product Development and Materials. The main research topics consisted of corrosion of metals in seawater, hydrogen embrittlement and tribology with a special focus on tribocorrosion of biomaterials used in body implants. In 2016 he started a PhD in localized corrosion of stainless steels at NTNU in the department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. After graduating in 2020, he got a position as senior engineer at NTNU where he was given the HSE role for different labs and was the technical responsible of the research instruments used in corrosion, tribology and microscopy (SEM and nanoindentation). During the 10 years he spent in Norway, he worked very closely with oil and gas industries such as Equinor, Aker BP, etc… as well as performing teaching duties in a master program at the university where, among other tasks, co-supervised more than 10 master theses. He has co-authored more than 10 international peer-reviewed journals and has participated in several international conferences. In May 2022 he started as Post-Doc researcher in the Energy Conversion and Storage group at ITQ, working in different projects related to the capture of CO2, corrosion and metal-ceramic multilayer electrical processes using green H2.


ResearchGate

Dr. Diego Plaza Lozano is a young researcher in the Energy Conversion and Storage group at Instituto de Tecnología Química-Spanish National Research Council (ITQ-CSIC – Valencia, Spain), he joined the group in December 2022. He obtained the Bachelor Science degree in Chemistry from University of Valladolid (UVa - Castilla y León, Spain) in 2011, also a Master Science degree in Advanced Techniques in Chemistry by UVa in collaboration with the Institute of Polymer Science and Technology (ICTP-CSIC – Madrid, Spain). During that period, he accomplished a stay in the Fusion Technology Center at Hanyang University (FTC-HYU – Seoul, South Korea) in 2012, obtaining experience in the field of organic/membrane polymeric synthesis focused on gas separation. Before he started his PhD degree, he was working in the polymeric industry, and then at Instituto de Química Orgánica General (IQOG-CSIC – Madrid, Spain). He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical Sciences by the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico City, Mexico) in 2021, focusing his research on the field of in/organic synthesis (coordination chemistry), crystallography and magnetochemistry, especially in spin-crossover chemistry. In that period, he received several fellowships by National Council on Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACyT), and he was awarded by CONACyT/Organization of Iberoamerican States for Education, Science and Culture (EOI)-Santander Bank. He is co-author of several scientific peer-reviewed papers and participated in national and international conferences. Currently, he is working on different projects related to metallic corrosion using green H2, and in CO2 capture challenges.


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