Seville, October 3, 2017. Jesús Campos, a scientist at the Institute of Chemical Research (IIQ), belonging to the cicCartuja – a joint CSIC-US-Junta de Andalucía center, has just obtained a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Thanks to this, Campos will have 1,445,000 euros until 2023 to lead a project to develop innovative catalysts, conceptually different from those used in the industry to date.

Starting Grant is the initial excellence program of the ERC of the European Union; its objective is that talented young researchers – and those with a doctorate degree between 2 and 7 years old – can create independent research groups. Specifically, with these funds it will be possible to hire four doctoral students, three postdoctoral researchers, a laboratory technician and a project manager. All of them will form the group that Campos will lead as Principal Investigator.

The development of innovative concepts and strategies in the area of ​​catalysis has very important economic, social and environmental benefits. According to Campos, “catalysis is a multidisciplinary science that plays a crucial role in most industrial processes and is also essential in the search for solutions that minimize the growing environmental deterioration.”

Among the specific objectives pursued by the project is the functionalization of carbon dioxide, the main cause of the greenhouse effect. The implementation of this and other processes in an efficient manner would have a high economic and environmental impact.

This research project will use an interdisciplinary strategy that will combine basic concepts from traditionally independent areas of knowledge, such as the chemistry of the elements of the main groups, transition metals and molecular clusters.