Separation Processes and Materials Preparation following Green Chemistry Principles and using Supercritical Fluids
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Concepción Pando García-Pumarino
GROUP MEMBERS
This UCM group is a multidisciplinary team formed by members of the Physical Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Materials departments
- Concepción Pando García-Pumarino
- Albertina Cabañas Poveda
- Lourdes Calvo Garrido (Dpt. Ingeniería Química y Materiales)
- Juan A. Rodríguez Renuncio
GENERAL RESEARCH OBJECTIVE OF THE GROUP
Sustainable technologies based on supercritical CO2 are used to prepare nanostructured materials with applications in catalysis, pharmacy, remediation and food industry.
Supercritical CO2 transport properties are better than those of liquids thus allowing to obtain materials with unique properties. On the other hand, supercritical CO2 is nontoxic, non-flammable, inexpensive (as a byproduct of other industrial processes) and has moderate critical parameters; therefore it is considered a sustainable solvent. Moreover, CO2 can be eliminated by depressurization (at ambient conditions CO2 is a gas) and solvent-free products are obtained.
LINES OF THE RESEARCH GROUP AND RESPONSIBLE RESEARCHER
- Phase equilibria of systems formed by CO2 (Concepción Pando)
- Supercritical extraction of natural products (Lourdes Calvo)
- Preparation of advanced drug delivery systems using supercritical CO2 as:
- antisolvent (SAS process)(Concepción Pando)
- solvent (impregnation)(Albertina Cabañas)
- as extracting and precipitating agent (SFEE process)(Lourdes Calvo)
- Preparation of heterogenous catalysts (Albertina Cabañas)
- Preparation of materials for CO2 capture and metal adsorption (Albertina Cabañas)
- Sterilization using CO2 at high pressure (Lourdes Calvo)
LINK TO THE GROUP'S WEBSITE