MINISTÉRIO DA EDUCAÇÃO
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE PELOTAS
CENTRO DE CIÊNCIAS QUÍMICAS, FARMACÊUTICAS E DE ALIMENTOS
PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM QUÍMICA
Seminários do PPGQ
Waste to wealth: biomass/residues valorisation for
the production of chemicals, materials and fuels
Professor Rafael Luque
Universidade de Cordoba - Espanha
Local: Mini-Auditório do CCQFA-UFPel
Data e Hora: 08 de julho, às 9h 30min
Abstract
The design of benign and environmentally sound methodologies has been the
driving force of scientists in recent years in our aim towards a more sustainable future
society. Attractive and innovative protocols that nowadays are even part of industrial
ventures including benign-by-design preparation of nanomaterials from biomass and
waste using a number of protocols and more recently applications of nanomaterials in
catalysis, sensors and biomedicine have been recently developed in our group in past
years.
In this lecture, we aim to provide an overview of recent efforts from our group
related to the important concept of waste valorization, advanced as opposed to the
commonly known and extended waste management. A series of biomass and residues
(e.g. food waste, lignocellulosics) have been successfully converted into useful end
products including chemicals, materials and fuels using environmentally friendly
technologies including microwave irradiation, ball milling, fractionation and several
others. Towards the end of the lecture, we will highlight personal experiences as young
entrepreneur co-founder of Starbon Technologies Ltd at York (UK) and Green Applied
Solutions S.L. in Cordoba (Spain) in our aim to stimulate and promote entrepreneurial
activities within the academic and student community.
About the speaker
Rafael Luque (Ph.D 2005 from Universidad de Cordoba, Spain) has a significant
experience on biomass and waste valorisation practises to materials, fuels and chemicals as
well as nanoscale chemistry, heterogeneous (nano)catalysis, microwave and flow chemistry
and green chemical methods in synthetic organic chemistry. Prof. Luque has pioneered
research related to the design of nanomaterials using an innovative mechanochemical
approach under ball milling conditions, protocols and technologies for biomass and waste
valorization to important platform chemicals (succinic acid, levulinic acid, etc.) biofuels
(biodiesel) and materials (silicas, aluminas, etc.) as well as numerous heterogeneously
catalysed chemical processes under microwave irradiation and continuous flow chemistry.
He has published over 250 research articles, filed 3 patent applications and edited 10
books as well as numerous contributions to book chapters and invited, guest, keynote and
plenary lectures in scientific events worldwide. He is also heavily involved in Chemical
Education and promoting Science in Developing Countries. Prof. Luque was recently appointed
(2015) as Editor of Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical from Elsevier, being also member
of the Editorial Advisory Board of prestigious journals including Chemical Society Reviews and
Green Chemistry (RSC), Scientific Reports (Nature), Catalysis Communications and Heliyon
(Elsevier), Current Organic Synthesis and Current Green Chemistry (Bentham Publishers),
Sustainable Chemical Processes (Springer) and many others. Rafael is also Series Editor of
Topics in Current Chemistry (Springer) and Editor-in-chief of the Porous section of the journal
Materials.
Among recent awards, Rafael has received the Marie Curie Prize from Instituto Andaluz
de Quimica Fina in Spain (2011), the Green Talents award from the Federal Ministry of
Education and Research in Germany (2011), the TR35 Spain from Technology Review and MIT
as one of the top 10 young entrepreneurs in Spain (2012) and very recently the RSC
Environment, Sustainability and Energy Early Career Award (2013) from the Royal Society of
Chemistry UK.
Prof. Luque has also been honored as 2013 Distinguished Engineering Fellow and
Visiting Professor from CBME at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong
and currently holds a Chinese Academy of Sciences Visiting Professorship at the State Key
Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry of the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry
(from 2014) as well as Ciencia sem Fronteiras Pesquisador Especial at Universidade de Pelotas
in Brazil (2015-2017). Rafael is also Visiting Professor at the College of Engineering,
Departament of Chemical Engineering from Xiamen University in China from 2015.
Prof. Luque combines his academic duties with his activities as young entrepreneur
after co-founding the spin-off companies Starbon® Technologies at York, UK (2011,
http://www.starbon-technologies.com/) which markets novel biomass derived carbonaceous
materials and Green Applied Solutions S.L. (GAS, http://greenappliedsolutions.com/) in
Cordoba, Spain (2012) as a R&D and consultancy technological company on waste valorization
to marketable products, being also on the Technical Scientific Board of SINOPEC; the largest
Petrochemical Company in China.