Javier Macias Montiel

Last week (9th-12th of May 2016) I was lucky to attend  the XII edition of International Nanotechnology Conference (INC12), which took place in the nice city of Leuven, a few kilometers of the Belgium capital, Thanks to the financial supported by European Commission, which allow me, and other colleagues of rest of Europe keep abreast of the hottest topics related with nanotechnology, as well as to understand the importance of international cooperation.

During the three days of the conference, we had the chance to interact with experts who have more of 20 years of background on technology development and putting different products in the market, but despite that, these people were very close and easy to talk to and  learn for our future careers.

In the different sections, different topics were approached, from talks related with international cooperation, explaining where Europe is located from a point of view of innovation, to other talks with more specific scientific content, but addressing different issues such as rebooting computing or IOT devices, allowing to the listeners to get a more general view of the state of the art of nanotechnology.

INC12 helped me create a new vision and also to better understand the direction of the world of technology and the new strategies towards the top of innovation. It also made me reflect on aspects that so far had not raised me, for example, the importance to research always with an eye on the market, and thinking how to overcome the gap between academia and scale up to the final product.

On the other hand, conference taught us the importance of teamwork, where with a good collaboration, easily we can develop higher quality work – “None of us is as good as all together”.

In my opinion,being part of INC12 has been useful from a scientific point of view, but also I was able to extrapolated some of the things  I learned to my personal life, where  having an overview of the future and realizing that the skill of cooperation is essential for  human growth. 

For all of this, I would like to thanks once more, to European Commission for giving us the chance to participate in this amazing conference,as well as to all my colleagues from different points of Europe, with whom I was able to share interesting information related to our work but also had a good time and laughter.

I would like to end up using a few words used during the conference, which made me think; 

“ Individual effort is vital but mostly insufficient”

Date and place of birth: 19 February 1988, Malaga, Spain

Academic degrees:

•  Degree in Chemistry (5-year program), Science Department, University of Malaga, 2011.

Scientific and professional activities:

since 2013: PhD fellow from FCT (SFRH/BD/91675/2012), Department of Materials and Ceramic Engineering, CICECO, University of Aveiro

2012-2013: Research fellow within the European R&D project (RFSR-CT-00002/IERO), Department of Materials and Ceramic Engineering, CICECO, University of Aveiro

2010-2011: Research Work, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Crystallography and Mineralogy, University of Malaga

2009-2010: Academically Supervised Research Work, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Crystallography and Mineralogy, University of Malaga

Area of scientific activity:
Inorganic Chemistry, Materials Science, Fuel Cells and gas separation membrane, Electrochemistry, Energy Storage, Solid State Anodes

Domain of specialization:

• Ceramic processing, including sintering and characterization
•  Spectroscopic methods for crystal characterization: X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)
• Microscopy: Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)  with background in bulk ceramic sample preparation
•  Electrochemistry: Impedance Spectroscopy, 4- probe Method.

2010 – “ Beca de colaboracion” (Studentship by public announcement). Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain.

2014 - Tutorial Workshop on Electrochemical Impedance, University of Aveiro (Portugal)

2013 - Tutorial Workshop of Solid State Ionics 19 Conference (kyoto, Japan) on the following topics:

•   “Fundamentals of Diffusion and Surface Exchange Reactions” (Tutor: Profs werner Sitte and Wolfgang Preis, University of Leoben)
•   “Advanced methods in electrochemical impedance spectroscopy” (Tutor: Prof. Bernard A. Boukamp, University of Twente)
•   “Solid state proton conductors” (Tutor: Prof. Truls Norby, University of Oslo)
•   “The principles and possible usage of Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations in Solid State Ionics” (Tutor: Prof. Yukinory Koyama, University of Kyoto)

2013-  Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Department of Materials and Ceramic Engineering, University of Aveiro. (Portugal)

2011 - Course of municipal solid waste management. Department of municipal solid waste, Malaga (Spain)

2011 - Course of restoration of landfill sealed in Europe. Department of municipal solid waste, Malaga (Spain)

2010 – Course of particle characterization. Institute of Ceramic and Glass (ICV), Madrid (Spain)

SCI papers

[4]Boosting thermoelectric performance by controlled defect chemistry engineering in Ta-substituted strontium titanate, A.A Yaremchenko, S. Populoh,S.G. Patricio, J.Macias, P. Thiel, D.P. Fagg, A.Weidenkaff, J.R.Frade, A.V. Kovalevsky, Chemistry of Materials (Accepted)

[3] Structural and defect chemistry guidelines for Sr(V,Nb)O₃ based SOFC anode materials. J.Macias, A.A Yaremchenko, D.P. Fagg, J.R. Frade. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (2015) 17, 10749-10758

[2] Redox transitions in strontium vanadates: Electrical conductivity and dimensional changes. J.Macias, A.A Yaremchenko, J.R.Frade. Journal of Alloys and Compounds 601(2014) 186-194

[1]  G-Factor, a suitable tool for ancient ceramic characterization. Application to monitroing amphorae phase transforamtions in firing. Leon-Reina, Laura; Compana, Jose; Cabeza, Aurelio; Aranda, Miguel; Macias, Javier, Accepted in Archaeometry.

Chapters in books:

AUTHORS: Compaña, J.M.; Macías, J.; León-Reina, L.; Serrano, E.; Aranda, M.A.G.
TITLE: El alfar romano de sigillata hispánica de Singilia Barba: una perspectiva arqueométrica
BOOK: Primer Congreso Internacional sobre Estudios Cerámicos Homenaje a la Dra. Mercedes Vegas. Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Cádiz. Cádiz, 2013. ISBN: 978-84-9828-401-0, pp. 627-652.

Oral communications:

• “Donor and acceptor co-substitutions in SrTiO₃: Effects on electrical conductivity and redox behavior”  A.A Yaremchenko, J.Macias, J.R Frade. HYCELTEC- V Iberian Symposium on Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Advanced Batteries, Tenerife, Spain, 05-08 July 2015

•  “(Sr,Ln)(V,Nb)O₃ (Ln= La and Y) perovskites as prospective ceramic components for SOFC anodes” J.Macias, A.A Yaremchenko, J.R Frade. HYCELTEC- V Iberian Symposium on Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Advanced Batteries, Tenerife, Spain, 05-08 July 2015

•  “Defect chemistry guidelines for redox tolerance, thermochemical expansion and electrical conductivity of Sr(V,Nb)O₃-base fuel electrodes”- (Keynote) J.R Frade, J.Macias, A.A Yaremchenko. The 14^th European Ceramic Society, Toledo, Spain, 21-25 June 2015

• “Redox stability and electrical properties of Sr_1-xY_xV_1-yNb_yO₃ for prospective SOFC anodes” J.Macias, A.A Yaremchenko, J.R Frade. The 20^Th International Conference on Solid State Ionics, Denver, USA, 14-19 June 2015
• “Substituted SrVO₃ as fuel electrode material for solid-electrolyte cells: Redox stability, electrical conductivity and thermochemical expansion” A.A Yaremchenko, J.Macías, J.R Frade. 6^th international conference on Fundamentals and Development of Fuel Cells, Toulouse (France), 03-05 February 2015
• “Electrical properties and redox stability of Nb-substituted SrVO₃ as prospective SOFC anode material” J.Macías, A.A Yaremchenko, J.R Frade. Joint international symposium RCBJSF-FM&NT, Riga (Latvia), 29-02 October 2014
•  “Donor-substituted SrTiO₃: Relevant issues in the development of ceramic components for SOFC anodes” A.A Yaremchenko, J.Macías, A.V. Kovalevsky, E.S Kravchenko, J.R Frade, Asian SOFC symposium and exhibition, Busan (Korea), 21-24 september 2014
•  “Assessment of Sr_1-xLn_xV_1-yNb_yO₃ (Ln=La and Y) for fuel electrodes”  J. Macias; A.A Yaremchenko J.R Frade. Electroceramics XIV, Bucharest (Romania) , 16-20 June 2014
•  “Electrical properties, Redox behaviour and Electrochemical activity of SrTi_1-xTa_xO₃ as fuel electrode component”  A.A Yaremchenko; J. Macias;  J.R Frade. Electroceramics XIV, Bucharest (Romania) , 16-20 June 2014
•  “Electrical properties, defect formation and redox behaviour of Ln-doped SrTiO₃ as prospective SOFC anode materials” A.A Yaremchenko; E.N. Naumovich; J. Macias; S. Patricio; E.S Kravchenko; A.V Kovalevsky; J.R Frade. European Materials Reseach Society Meeting, Strasbourg, Poland, 16-20 September 2013
• “Rare-Earth substituted SrTiO₃ for solid oxide fuel cell anodes: electrical conductivity, thermal expansion and redox behaviour”. A.A Yaremchenko; J.Macias; S.Patricio; A.V. Kovalevsky; O.V. Merkulov; E.S. Kravchenko; J.R Frade.  The 19^Th International Conference on Solid State Ionics, Kyoto, Japan, 2-7 June 2013
•  “El Alfar romano de sigillata hispánica de Singilia Barba: una perspectiva arqueométrica” . J, Macias ; Compana, J.M; Leon Reina, L.; Serrano, E; Aranda, M.A.G.  International Congress of Ceramics studies, Cadiz, Spain, 1-5 November 2010. 

Posters:

• “Assessment of La-,Y- and Nb- substituted SrVO₃ as prospective anode material for solid oxide fuel cells” J.Macias ;  A.A Yaremchenko; J.R. Frade. The 19^Th Meeting of the portuguese electrochemical society, Aveiro Portugal, 30 June – 2 July 2014
• “Electrical concuctivity, thermal expansion and redox behavior of Sr_1-xLn_xV_1-yNb_yO_3-d (Ln = La and Y) perovskites for solid oxide fuel cell anode applications”  J.Macias ;  A.A Yaremchenko; J.R. Frade. The 19^Th International Conference on Solid State Ionics, Kyoto, Japan, 2-7 June 2013