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Research Units

MATERIALS – Membranes and advanced materials

The MATERIALS unit focuses on the research and development of advanced materials with innovative applications across various industrial sectors, always with an emphasis on sustainability and environmental responsibility. By integrating knowledge from physics, chemistry, and chemical engineering, the team works on the creation of membrane materials and porous materials for separation, capture, and purification processes, with particular attention to energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact. The unit tackles technological challenges in water treatment, CO₂ capture, the recovery of valuable products, and the production of renewable energy.

Scientific-technical capabilities

1

Synthesis and design of advanced membranes and optimization of their structural properties (permeability, selectivity, stability, etc.).

2

Development of sustainable methodologies for material production.

3

Material characterization techniques: properties and performance (spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, permeability analysis, etc.).

4

Optimization of material stability under operational conditions.

5

Optimization of separation and capture processes (CO₂, H₂, water contaminants, etc.).

Researchers

RECOGNIZED RESEARCHERS

  • Alberto Tena Matías
  • Antonio Hernández Giménez
  • Francisco Javier Carmona del Río
  • José Ignacio Calvo Díez
  • Laura Palacio Martínez
  • Pedro Prádanos del Pico

ESTABLISHED RESEARCHERS

  • Mónica Rosa de la Viuda Caiña
  • Sergio Paniagua Bermejo

PREDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

  • Alba Torres Arribas
  • Elena San José Rodríguez
  • Manuel Alonso Devesa

Current projects

Hybrid membranes with ultra-high properties based on monomers obtained from the miniaturization of porous metal boxes for hydrogen purification (DADME-HY)

Reference
PID2023-149594OB-C21
Principal Investigator
Alberto Tena Matías & Laura Palacio Martínez
Date
2024-2027
Financing Entity
MICINN / UE - Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento 2023
Budget
€ 187,500.00

Latest Publications

el Amine Zennaki, M., Tennouga, L., Palacio, L., Tena, A. (2026) Water decontamination by adsorption of heavy metals by new magnetic polymer nanoparticle based on polystyrene plastic waste. Journal of Water Process Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwpe.2026.1095148


Rivera, F., Villarreal, L., Prádanos, P., Muñoz, R., Palacio, L., Hernández, A. (2025) Optimizing Ammonia Separation from Thermophilic Digestate: The Combined Effect of pH and Thermal Gradients in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation. Membranes. https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes15120348


Peters, T., Ansaloni, L., Rosa De La Viuda, M., Tena, A., Karvan, O., Visser, T., Chinn, D., Bhuwania, N. (2025) Performance and Stability of Selected Polymeric Membrane Materials for Use in High-H2S and Humid Natural Gas Feeds. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.4c03485


San José, E., de la Viuda, M.R., Carmona, F.J., Soto, C., Palacio, L., Prádanos, P., Hernández, A., Tena, A. (2024) Green dipolar aprotic solvents for the dynamic polycondensation of high-performance polyimide membranes. Green Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4GC04279D


Torres, A., Soto, C., Carmona, F.J., Simorte, M.T., Sanz, I., Muñoz, R., Palacio, L., Prádanos, P., Hernández, A., Tena, A. (2024) Enhancing Permeability: Unraveling the Potential of Microporous Organic Polymers in Mixed Matrix Membranes. ACS Applied Polymer Materials. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.4c01379


Imbrogno, A., Calvo, J.I., Breida, M., Schwaiger, R., Schäfer, A.I. (2024) Molecular weight cut off (MWCO) determination in ultra- and nanofiltration: Review of methods and implications on organic matter removal. Separation and Purification Technology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2024.128612


Peinador, R.I., H.P, P.T., Calvo, J.I. (2024) Innovative application of Nile Red (NR)-Based Dye for Direct Detection of Micro and Nanoplastics (MNPs) in Diverse Aquatic Settings. Chemosphere. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.142609


El Abbadi, S., El Moustansiri, H., Douma, M., Bouazizi, A., Arfoy, B., Calvo, J.I., Tijani, N. (2024) Enhancing the performance of alumina-pillared clay for phenol removal from water solutions and polyphenol removal from olive mill wastewater: Characterization, kinetics, adsorption performance, and mechanism. Journal of Water Process Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwpe.2024.105432


Torres, A., Soto, C., Carmona, J., Comesaña-Gandara, B., de la Viuda, M., Palacio, L., Prádanos, P., Simorte, M.T., Sanz, I., Muñoz, R., Tena, A., Hernández, A. (2024) Gas permeability through polyimides: unraveling the influence of free volume, intersegmental distance and glass transition temperature. Polymers. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16010013


Shan, M., Geng, X., Imaz, I., Broto-Ribas, A., Ortín-Rubio, B., Maspoch, D., Ansaloni, L., Peters, T.A., Tena, A., Boerrigter, M.E., Vermaas, D.A. (2024) Metal- and covalent-organic framework mixed matrix membranes for CO2 separation: A perspective on stability and scalability. Journal of Membrane Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2023.122258

Latest publications

Hmimid, A., Ouahi, M., Tadeo, F. (2026) Stability of Discrete-Time Neutral Systems with Discrete and Distributed Delays: A Delay Decomposition Approach. Mathematics. https://doi.org/10.3390/math14030390

Molinos-Senante, M., Maziotis, A. (2026) Water Service Energy Efficiency: Water Companies in England and Wales. Journal AWWA. https://doi.org/10.1002/awwa.70023

de Moraes Altafini, R., López-Linares, J.C., González-Galán, A.M., García-Cubero, M.T., Reginatto, V., Coca, M. (2026) A green strategy to transform pineapple peel into biobutanol includes microwave pretreatment and in-situ butanol recovery. Renewable Energy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2026.125341

Moldes, D., Vega, M., Bolado, S., Fernández Requejo, P. (2026) Mild One-Step Protein Recovery from Microalgae Cultivated in Swine Wastewater Using Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent-Based Aqueous Biphasic Systems. Molecules. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules31030483

Sala-Garrido, R., Maziotis, A., Molinos-Senante, M. (2026) Assessing Eco-Efficiency in Municipal Solid Waste Management Integrating Heterogeneity: A Latent Class Stochastic Frontier Analysis. Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.70736

Research Units

CHEMBIO – Analysis and control of chemical and biological pollution

ENVIROENG - Engineering for environmental sustainability

PROCESSES – Systems engineering and industrial process evaluation