Students of the secondary school Valle del Saja in Cabezón de la Sal (Cantabria) visited the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department on May 6th, 2019. Raquel Ibáñez welcomed them and delivered a talk about the role of Chemical Engineers around the world. Then, students visited the facilities of the Department and talked to the researchers, who presented them the different academic and research activities that are currently performed.
Cristina González, PhD. student of the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department, is carrying out a predoctoral research stay at the Institute of Molecular Modeling and Simulation of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. During her stay, from April 1st to June 28th, 2019, Cristina is studying the molecular simulation of the interactions between lipid polysaccharide and potential receptor proteins, under the supervision of Chris Oostenbrink.
James W. Levis, Research Assistant Professor of the North Carolina State University, delivered the talk “Life Cycle Optimization of Solid Waste Management Systems”. The conference took place in the ETSIIT at 15:30h, on April 29th, 2019. This event was organized in the frame of the Master in chemical engineering and the Doctorate program in chemical, energy and process engineering.
Andreia Gouveia, PhD. student of the Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa, is making a predoctoral research stay at the research group Advanced Separation Processes, in the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department of the University of Cantabria. During her internship, from April 22nd, 2019 to June 30th, 2019, she will be working on characterization of poly(ionic liquid)/ionic liquid membranes and permeation tests with multi-component gas mixtures, under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Gorri.
Prof. Daniel Gorri attended the PhD. Thesis Defense of Alan Didier Pérez Ávila, as a member of the evalution committe. The thesis, entitled “Applications of a liquid membrane in Taylor flow regime (LMTF) on separation processes and design of fermentention hybrid systems”, took place in the Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Sede Manizales, Manizales (Colombia), on April 10th, 2019.
María Yáñez is back from her predoctoral research stay at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (Portugal), where she was working from January 14th to April 19th, 2019, under the supervision of Prof. Adélio Mendes. During this period, she was doing experiments and modeling the production of fuel cell quality hydrogen, from industrial wastes, using the pressure swing adsorption technology.
The team formed by Ángel Irabien, Raquel Ibáñez, Manuel Álvarez, Antonio Domínguez and Guillermo Díaz, all of them faculty members of the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department, received the special mention of the Societal Council of the University of Cantabria for the project ‘Aprender haciendo: Chem-E-Car Competition como herramienta para adquirir y evaluar competencias’. The award ceremony took place on April 16th, 2019, and was chaired by the president of the Societal Council, Mr. José Luis Zárate, the Rector of the UC, Prof. Ángel Pazos and the President of the Regional Parliament, Mrs. Dolores Gorostiaga, among other institutional representatives.
Alfredo Ortiz attended the Engineering with membranes conference – EWM 2019, that was held in Båstad, Sweden on April 8-10, 2019, where he presented the work entitled “Novel proton conductive membranes based on poly([HSO3-BVIm][TfO]-co-MMA) and poly([HSO3- BVIm][TfO]-co-hPFSVE) for fuel cell applications”.
On April 4th, 2019 the award ceremony of the Local Chemistry Olympiad 2019 took place at the ETSIIT of the University of Cantabria, organized by AQUIQÁN in collaboration with the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ). Mr. Jose María Colina, President of the Evaluation Committee of the Local Chemistry Olympiad 2019, chaired the ceremony. The students Víctor Mencía Alonso (IES Alisal), Alicia Palacio Solórzano (IES Santa Clara) and Paz Marina Martínez Menéndez (IES José María Pereda) received the gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively, in recognition of their results in the Local Chemistry Olympiad 2019.
Moreover, the local coordinator of the National Chemistry Olympiad, explained to the winners the guidelines to participate in the National Olympiad, that will take place on May 10-12, 2019 in Santander. The winners of the Local Chemistry Olympiad were invited to welcome the rest of participant who will attend the event from different places in Spain.
All the information about the National Chemistry Olympiad is available on: https://rseq.org/quimica-y-sociedad/olimpiadas/
On April 4th, 2019 Interreg Sudoe Program organized a Roadtrip at the ETSIIT of the University of Cantabria, aimed at presenting the Interreg SUDOE Program to students of the Chair Jean Monnet of the UC. This event was organized by the Joint Secretariat of the Interreg SUDOE Program, in the frame of the Cooperation Days¡. The event was attended by several members of the Secretariat of the Interreg SUDOE Program Isabelle Roger, Head of the Joint Secretariat, Andrea Rodríguez, responsible for Communication and Capitalization; Alexandre Le Gall, project manager; Juan Llanes Cavia from the Management Authority, and Ana Carrera Poncela, from the Board of Directors of the Management Company of the Interreg South-West European Space SL.
During the event, Andrea Rodríguez, talk about the International Cooperation: INTERREG SUDOE PROGRAM. After that, a round table took place with the participation of the coordinators of the projects REPARP, SUDOE STOP CO2, THICHRON and PEMFC_SUDOE. Then, Alfredo Ortiz, presented the PEMFC_SUDOE project in detail, including a visit to the labs where the project is performed at UC.
Moreover, during the event the Hydrogen Bike Prototype, developed in the frame of the European Project PEMFC-SUDOE (coordinator: Dr. Alfredo Ortiz), was presented by Dr. Esther Santos, representative of the partner project Apria Systems SL.
