Meet the Jury Cristina Martinez Sanchez on Designing Zeolite-Based Catalysts for Industrially Relevant Chemical Processes

Arenberg Doctoral School is proud to invite you to Meet The Jury!

When internationally renowned experts visit KU Leuven as a member of a PhD Examination Committee, we like to seize this opportunity to give this expert a forum to a large audience. All members of Science, Engineering & Technology are most welcome to the Meet The Jury Lectures.

Dr. Cristina Martinez Sanchez (Instituto de Tecnología Química, Spain) will give a lecture on “Designing Zeolite-Based Catalysts for Industrially Relevant Chemical Processes”.

Climate change and, in particular, global warming due to the anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), is one of the main problems of nowadays society. In order to avoid irreversible environmental effects that will unavoidable impact life as we know it today, drastic changes on the energy sources employed by industry and transportation have to be applied in order to minimize the overall carbon footprint, mainly generated by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.1 Facing these different challenges related to climate change, pollution and sustainable energy involves a common factor, which is the use of innovative catalytic technologies, an area where heterogeneous catalysts stand out as the core of effective cost-basis solutions leading to a sustainable future thanks to their recyclable nature.2 Among heterogeneous catalysts, zeolite-type microporous crystalline materials may present high activity and selectivity for catalyzing a specific reaction by means of the proper combination of topology and active sites. They are widely applied as catalysts in a large number of processes because of their particular structure, formed by channels and cavities of molecular dimensions, of their compositional flexibility and of their thermal and hydrothermal stability. 3–5 Here I will present a general overview of new trends in the development of zeolite-based catalysts for industrial applications and, in particular, of the most recent contributions of our group to this field. Processes such as on-purpose propene production or light olefin oligomerization will be considered. References: 1 Lanzafame, P.; Abate, S.; Ampelli, C.; Genovese, C.; Passalacqua, R.; Centi, G.; Perathoner, S. ChemSusChem 2017, 10, 4409–4419. 2 Hu, X.; Yip, A. C. K. Frontiers Catal. 2021, 1, 667675. 3 Martínez, C.; Corma, A. Coord. Chem. Rev. 2011, 255, 1558–1580. 4 Moliner, M.; Martínez, C.; Corma, A. Multipore Zeolites: Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 3560–3579. 5 Del Campo, P.; Martínez, C.; Corma, A. Chem. Soc. Rev. 2021, 50, 8511–8595.

Following the lecture, there will be opportunity for young researchers to interact with her.

• Venue: R.LChem&Tech – Curie.492-31.00.118, Celestijnenlaan 200f, 3001 Heverlee
• Date: 20 April 2026 – 10:45-11:45
• Dr. Cristina Martinez Sanchez is visiting KU Leuven on the occasion of the PhD defence of Mostafa Torka Beydokhti