Category Archives: News

PhD student Félix Lizalde Arroyo has won the Best Paper Award at FOAMS 2024, the most prestigious conference on cellular polymers. This award is presented every year by the SPE: Inspiring Plastics Professionals (Thermoplastic Materials & Foams Division) during its annual congress. This conference is open to world-renowned speakers presenting technical papers on innovations in foam processing, new blowing agents, micro- and nano-cellular foams and, in general, the potential industrial applications of these materials.

The winning paper deals with the production of a nanocellular material from a high performance polymer, which combines a reduction in weight with an improvement in properties compared to the performer solid.

In the photo, Félix Lizalde Arroyo receives the award from Stephane Costeux.

Three young researchers from the CellMat group have been awarded at the latest edition of the Poly-char 2024 conference, held in May in the city of Madrid.

The awards were:

• Dr. Beatriz Merillas: Best oral presentation award (by GEP)
• Jaime Lledó Martín: Best poster award (by IUPAC)
• Clara Amezúa: Best poster award (by GEP)

Beatriz Merillas, a postdoctoral researcher in the CellMat group, has been awarded the Best PhD Thesis in Polymers 2023 , granted by the Specialized Group in Polymers (GEP) of the Royal Spanish Society of Chemistry and the Royal Society of Physics.

The award was given for her thesis titled «Synthesis, Characterization, and Structure-Properties Relationship of Aerogels and Aerogel-Based Composites,» in which the GEP recognized the advancements made in the field of nanoporous materials and aerogels.

The author, together with her thesis advisors Miguel Ángel Rodríguez and Fernando Villafañe, defended her thesis in 2023, which included 11 scientific publications and earned the honors of Cum Laude and International Doctorate.

Judith Martin de Leon, Victoria Bernardo and Miguel Angel Rodriguez-Perez, members of CellMat, have publish a book titled NANOCELLULAR POLYMERS. FROM MICROESCALE TO NANOSCALE.

The book covers production, structure, properties and potential applications of nanocellular polymers fabricated by using foaming methods.

Beatriz Merillas Valero, Ismael Sanchez Calderon and Daniel Cuadra Rodriguez, researchers at CellMat Laboratory, presented their PhD thesis.

The three thesis received Excellent-Cum Laude califications.

Beatriz Merillas Valero, PhD student of CellMat Laboratory, wins the First Prize for the Best Oral Presentation from Early Career Researchers in a competition between the different students who presented in the «Spanish-Portuguese Industry-Academia Aerogel Meeting”, 1-2 March 2021 in Coimbra, Portugal.
This meeting is organized by AERoGELS COST Action (https://cost-aerogels.eu), the Chemical Process Engineering and Forest Products Research Centre (University of Coimbra, Portugal), the I+D Farma research group (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain) and Flucomp (Asociación de Expertos en Fluidos Comprimidos, Spain).

Researchers from CellMat develop a process to produce transparent nanocellular polymers without the need of a post-processing. They open the door to their possible use in several industrial applications.

https://diariodecastillayleon.elmundo.es/articulo/innovadores/espumas-con-tamanos-de-celda-diminutos-transporte-seguro-vacunas/20220119125509040106.html

Beatriz Merillas Valero, PhD student of CellMat Laboratory, wins the second prize for the Best Poster Presentation from Early Career Researchers in a competition between the different students who presented a poster in the International Conference on Aerogels for Biomedical and Environmental Applications in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

The PhD student of CellMat Laboratory Beatriz Merillas is currently investigating about the production of aerogels. This is a new research line in CellMat. Aerogels are ultra low-density materials with excellent properties for many applications, including a great thermal insulation capability. Recently, Beatriz Merillas received a prize in the contest 3 Minute Thesis (organized by the University of Valladolid) as a result of her work in this interesting topic.

News published in the journal El Mundo.

Eduardo López González, researcher at CellMat Laboratory, presented his PhD thesis entitled “Analysis of the composition-structure-properties relationship of open-cell polyolefin-based foams with tailored levels of gas phase tortuosity” on 20th November 2019. This thesis was supervised by Prof. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Pérez and Dr. Cristina Saiz Arroyo and is part of the CellMat Laboratory research activities about polyolefin foams.

The thesis received Excellent-Cum Laude calification.