The week of March 20, the lab received a visit from Dr. Abhaya Datye, Regents Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and Director of International Programs at CISTAR (Centre for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources), and Dr. Denise M. Driscoll, adjunct assistant professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University and director of Diversity and Inclusion at CISTAR.
The professors visited the University of São Paulo as part of the Center-to-Center (C2C) project of which three research centers are part: RCGI, CINE and CISTAR. The C2C project is aimed at collaboration between the centers in research in the area of hydrocarbon processing, fuel production, and CO2 utilization through knowledge exchange and exchange opportunities between the participating students and researchers.
Among the nine projects that make up the C2C, LaPCat is part of the “Tandem Conversion of Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) and CO2” project, developing studies in the area of CO2-assisted dehydroaromatization of ethane, and is starting to participate in one of the new projects proposed in the area of dry reforming of methane. Professor Abhaya has a career in heterogeneous catalysis and has shown great interest in collaborating with the LaPCat team.