MSCA-PF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of Inorganic Chemistry.

Professor Manuel J. Pérez-Mendoza, from the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) in 2024 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (for more information about the 2024 call, please consult this link.

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. With over 56,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and more than 6,000 members of staff, the UGR offers over 90 undergraduate degrees, 164 master’s degrees (8 of which are international double degrees) and 28 doctoral programmes via its 124 departments and nearly 50 centers. Accordingly, the UGR offers one of the most extensive and diverse ranges of higher education programmes in Spain.

The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflects the the institution’s commitment to continuously improve its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also internationally renowned for its excellence in diverse research fields and ranked among the top Spanish universities in a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, and international funding.

The UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking - Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The 2023 edition of the ARWU places the UGR in 201-300th position in the world and as the 1-2 highest ranked University in Spain (http://sl.ugr.es/0dwJ), reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research. From the perspective of specialist areas in the ARWU rankings (http://sl.ugr.es/0bSp), the UGR is outstanding in Food Science & Technology (ranked in the 48th position in the world), Hospitality & Tourism Management (ranked between 51th-75th position), and in the areas of Mathematics and Library & Information Science, both of them ranked between 76th-100th position. A little lower in the ranking, the UGR also stands out in the areas of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering and Nursing, in which the UGR is positioned at the rank in the 101-150th position. Finally, Dentistry & Oral Sciences is positioned between 151-200th position.

Additionally, the UGR counts with 9 researchers at the top of the Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list, most of them related to the Computer Science scientific area. It is also well recognised for its web presence (http://sl.ugr.es/0a6i), being positioned at 76th place in the top 200 Universities in Europe.

Internationally, the University of Granada is firmly committed to its participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union. For the duration of the last Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, the UGR obtained a total of 121 projects with a total funding of around €29,4 million. For the current Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, the UGR has obtained 74 projects, so far, with a total funding of almost €20 million.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group:

The RNM342 Research Group has recently changed its name to “Molecular materials for nanotechnology applications” to best reflect the new research areas that are now being explored. The research lines addressed by the group members are mainly related to carbon nanomaterials, bioinorganic nanomaterials, and supported metal-DNA systems. The aim is to design and develop new nanosystems with enhanced possibilities to tackle the new technology challenges, especially in the field of sustainable chemistry and new solutions for clean energy production.

Our Research Group has long experience working with carbon materials from a wide range of precursors, and their use in the adsorption and catalysis field. More recently, our Research Group has specialized in the modification of the carbon surface by cold plasmas of different precursors looking for an improvement in the surface chemistry of the materials. Similarly, we are working in developing methodologies to decorate carbon nanomaterials with complex molecular structures such as hyperbranched polyethyleneimines, which can serve as a starting point to generate stable ultra-small metal nanoparticles on the surface of the materials.

Recently, our research group has started to develop a new research line based on the interaction of DNA derivatives with carbon nanostructures, taking advantage of the DNA capability for the organization of chemical groups by coordination to a programmed nucleobase sequence, in order to produce hybrid nanomaterials with enhanced optoelectronics properties for photovoltaic applications.

Parallel to this research line, our research group is working on the design and development of new nanomaterials that can act as electrocatalysts in processes for clean-energy conversion reactions in fuel-cells and electrolyzers. This new group of nanomaterials is based on composites between MOFs (Metal Organic Frameworks) and POMs (polyoxometalates) and plasma-modified MOFs.

Project description:

The target of this new research line is to explore the development of highly nanostructured electrocatalysts that can compete with the state-of-the-art catalytic materials in the field of clean energy production/storage. The current benchmarks always contain expensive and scarce Platinum Group Metals (platinum, ruthenium, and/or iridium), restricting severely the wide implementation of the fuel cell/electrolyzer devices. The processes under study are the strategic electrochemical water splitting (i.e., O₂ and H₂ production from water, OER and HER, respectively) and the reduction of oxygen (ORR) —the key reaction that generates energy in fuel cell systems—. On the other hand, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a novel class of coordination polymers that present elevated degrees of crystallinity, defined porosity, and high surface areas. Besides, the homogeneously distributed metallic nodes —that form the frameworks along with the organic linkers— offers numerous active sites for electro-catalyzing the aforementioned energy processes. However, these promising nanomaterials suffer several drawbacks, such as, limited accessibility to the active sites, low electrical conductivity, and moderate stability under operando conditions. In this context, advanced cold plasma treatments can be a useful —and environmentally friendly— tool to enhance MOF electrocatalytic performances, since they allow modifying the MOF nanoarchitectures —via functionalization, formation of nanoparticles, defect engineering, etc.— with a very high degree of control over the extent of that structural modifications. Consequently, it is expected that these plasma-engineered MOFs will be a new generation of highly efficient and affordable electrocatalysts for green energy conversion.                    

Research Area:

☒ Chemistry (CHE)  

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor Manuel J. Pérez-Mendoza (mjperezm@ugr.es): 

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)