María José Pastoriza Gallego
     

 

This is María José Pastoriza Gallego personal webpage.

Her research career has focused on colloidal chemistry, and has evolved through different stages. The first objectives were related with Microemulsions, focusing the research to the study of reactivity of arendiazonio salts in heterogeneous systems. During her pre-doctoral stage, research was focused on determining the distribution of antioxidants in Macroemulsions. The experience acquired during those years in synthesis and analysis techniques, as well as characterization of these systems, supposed the opportunity of collaboration with groups of remarkable scientific reputation, and publication in high impact journals, which led to obtain the first Ph. D. in Physical Chemistry.

Afterwards, she enrolled as postdoctoral Fellow the group of Applied Physics at the University of Vigo. This represented a change in the type of fluid systems studied, with an industry focused approach. The previous experience allowed to successfully address the study of dispersions of nanoparticles in thermal fluids, participating in the successful development of two research projects. During these years she acquired training in the measurement of thermophysical properties, and also got acquainted with rheology, which allows characterizing the materials viscoelastic properties providing valuable insight about their structure. The studies performed concerning rheology of non Newtonian nanofluids are pioneering, as for the first time a rigorous characterization of the anomalous viscoelastic behavior of these nanocolloids has been completed, analyzing the influences of variables ranging from size and polydispersity to magnetic nature of the nanoparticles. In this period, she obtained a second Ph. D. in Applied Physics, and also directed several M.Sci. Projects, established partnerships and scientific collaboration with several research groups and published many papers, remarkably cited. In addition, the research results were presented as oral communications in many communications in conferences at National and International level.

In April 2013, she was awarded a Post-doctoral fellowship from Xunta de Galicia. The first two years, she was working at the University of Minho, Portugal, in collaboration with the Group of Polymer Engineering, in the framework of a project whose main objective was the development of conductive polymers obtained by reinforcing load, specifically focusing on carbon nanotubes and graphene. At the end of 2013 a co-directed Ph. D. thesis was presented in the field of food technology, obtaining the maximum qualification.

Since April 2015, she is working at the University of Vigo developing her own research line: “ Application of graphene and modified graphene nanofluids in the optimization of direct absorption solar collectors ”. This work is being carried out with one predoctoral student under the candidate supervision. The main objective is to enhance the energy efficiency and minimize heat loss of existing solar thermal collectors. To achieve this goal the replacement of classic transfer fluids used in volumetric solar collectors isd proposed, using new nanofluids of graphene and functionalized graphene, which enable to work at both low temperatures (nanofluids) and high temperatures (ionanofluids).

If you want to learn more about this scientific contribution please go to the Reseach section.