José Palomo Jiménez

Academic background.

José graduated as Chemical Engineer in 2013 at the University of Malaga. In 2014, he was awarded with a predoctoral grant offered by the Spanish Ministry of Education in the call for University Faculty Training (FPU) grants, which financed his PhD studies, under the supervision of Prof. José Rodríguez-Mirasol and Prof. Tomás Cordero, at the University of Malaga. His PhD studies were devoted to the development of alternative advanced catalysts for efficient direct dimethyl ether synthesis. During his PhD, he spent a research stay at the Catalysis Engineering (CE) group at Delft University of Technology, working under the supervision of Prof. Freek Kapteijn. Upon completion of his PhD studies in December 2019, he continued his work in the development of advanced fibrillar catalysts structured catalyst and the assessment of kinetic studies at the University of Malaga. In 2020, he was awarded with a postdoctoral research fellowship in the call Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA-IF-2020), which allowed him to work under the supervision of Prof. Atsushi Urakawa at the Catalysis Engineering (CE) group at Delft University of Technology. He joined Prof. Urakawa’s research group in June 2020 as a Postdoctoral Researcher.

Current project

José’s current project, entitled KinGrad-OCM, aims to set up a new methodological approach based on the application of operando spatial reactor analysis techniques for the study of the Oxidative Coupling of Methane reaction both in conventional furnace heated and microwave-assisted reactors. The application of these cutting-edge techniques will lead to a better understanding of how the reaction proceeds in space and time in the reactor (mechanism and kinetics of the process) and the development of advanced efficient catalysts. A particular focus is given to the assessment of reaction kinetics by the operando spatial reactor analysis through the physicochemical gradients present in the reactors.