Dpt. Inorganic Chemistry – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Abstract:
Personal and environmental protection against fortuitous or deliberate emissions of harmful chemical compounds into the atmosphere is certainly of major social concern. Particularly, protection against readily accessible chemical warfare agents (such as, Sarin nerve gas and Mustard vesicant gas) or control of the greenhouse gases emissions is definitely necessary. In this regard, porous crystalline materials such as metal organic frameworks (MOFs), built from metal ions interconnected by organic linkers, show very interesting properties related to the rational design of their structures through the pre-synthetic or post-synthetic design of ligands and/or metal centres. The application of this principle let us optimize the pore structure, the functional groups and other MOFs properties for specific applications, such as gas storage, separation and purification, heterogeneous catalysis, drug delivery, etc. In this talk, the use of MOFs in the separation and capture of CO2 from complex gas mixtures released from industrial combustion processes will be presented. Likewise, the use of highly hydrophobic MOFs to capture harmful volatile organic compounds (models of chemical warfare agents among others) that may be implemented in advanced air purification systems (membranes, filters gas masks and protective tissues) will be discussed.
Short Bio:
Carmen Montoro studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Granada and was graduated in 2007. Two years later she joined the group of Prof. Jorge Rodriguez in the Department of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Granada to carry out her PhD studies under the joint supervision of Prof. Jorge Rodriguez Navarro and Dra. Elisa Barea. In 2013, she obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry with merits (“Sobresaliente Cum Laude”). Her PhD focused on the design, synthesis and characterization of metal-organic open frameworks for environmental and industrial applications. Specifically, she studied the application of these materials in processes of gas separation and in the capture and storage of both greenhouse gases and volatile organic compounds, like chemical warfare agents. Furthermore, during her Ph.D. studies, she carried out two predoctoral stays in the group of Prof. Stefan Kaskel (University of Dresden, Germany) and Prof. Jeffrey Long (University of Berkeley, USA). Later on, she did a 3-years postdoc stay at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Prof. Félix Zamora’s group. Currently she holds a tenure track position as Assistant Professor in Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her research is focused on the study of two dimensional materials with tunable properties and the ionic conductivity of crystalline porous materials for its use in alternative energies.
Carmen is author of 11 publications at peer reviewed journal among them Chemical Society Reviews, JACs and Angewandte. During her research career she has participated actively in different national and international projects. In July 2018 she joined the European Institute of Membranes (IEM) as a research fellow. Her research in IEM is focused on preparation membranes from Metal and Covalent Organic Frameworks (MOF & COFs) for gas adsorption and separation.
