Affiliation: Instituto de Tecnología Quimica (UPV-CSIC)

Fields or areas of research Catalysis, Nanomaterials, CO2 Recycling, New fuels

Dr. Gonzalo Prieto graduated in Chemical Engineering at the University of Oviedo (Spain) and obtained his PhD degree in 2010 at the Institute of Chemical Technology (ITQ) in Valencia, Spain. From 2010-2013 he conducted postdoctoral research at the Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University (The Netherlands), as part of the Center for Atomic-Level Catalyst Design research consortium of the US Department of Energy. After a short stay as visiting researcher at the Louisiana State University (USA), in fall 2013, he received an Alexander von Humboldt personal grant and joined the department of Heterogeneous Catalysis at the Max Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung (MPI-KOFO, Mülheim, Germany) were he later obtained a Group Leader position. In 2018 he joined the ITQ as a Senior Tenured Researcher of the Spanish Research Council (equivalent to Assoc. Prof.).

His research activities encompass aspects of material synthesis, nanotechnology, tomographic imaging methods and reactivity assessment methods, jointly focused on the design and development of solid catalyst materials and processes for the conversion of unconventional carbon feedstocks into fuels and platform chemicals. Gonzalo has authored around 40 scientific articles and book chapters, with an average impact factor >10 (Thomson Reuters, January 2018), alongside 3 patents (2 of them transferred to industry), and has contributed >70 papers to scientific conferences/workshops and delivered ~20 invited lectures. He has participated in >20 research projects, being the principal investigator of >70% of them, and has supervised/currently supervises 8 PhD theses. Prieto's academic career  has been bestowed with the DuPont Chemical Engineering Award (2004), the National MSc Chemical Engineering Award (2005), the National PhD Thesis Award by the Spanish Catalysis Society (2010), the Innovation Proposal Award by the CALCD-EFRC of the US Department of Energy (2012), an Alexander von Humboldt grant (2013), the Honorary Entry (top 3) at the ExxonMobil Chemical European Science and Engineering Award (2017) as well as Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (2019).