Pedro Castano

Principal Investigator (PI)

Associate Professor

Current

Location:

Building 3, Level 4, Office 4276

Social Profile:

Biography

BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in 2002, 2004 and 2006, respectively. Hired as Postdoc at TUDelft, Catalysis Engineering department in 2007. After some voluntary work, I received the prestigious Ramon y Cajal fellow in 2009 and tenured to Associate Professor in 2013 at the UPV/EHU. In 2019 I was appointed as Associate Professor in the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), KAUST Catalysis Center (KCC) where I lead the Multiscale Reaction Engineering (MuRE) group. Besides, I have also worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Western Ontario (UWO), Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry (ICP-CSIC) and University of Utrecht (UU). 

Research Interests

chemical engineering, reaction engineering, reactor design, catalysis, refinery, bio-refinery, waste-refinery, catalyst deactivation, catalyst characterization, zeolites and zeoltypes, multiphase reactors, modeling reactor kinetics, microreactors, priodic reactors, methanol-to-hydrocarbons (MTH), fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), oligomerization, high throughput experimentation (HTE), hydrocracking, hydroprocessing, hydrotreating, spectroscopy, reforming, coke formation

Selected Publications

  • Alabdullah , M., Rodriguez Gomez, A., Shoinkhorova, T., Dikhtiarenko, A., Chowdhury, A.D., Hita, I., Vittenet, J., Sarathy , S.M., Castaño, P., Bendjeriou-Sedjarari, A, Abou-Hamad, E., Zhang, W., Ali, O., Morales-Osorio, I., Xu, W., Gascon, J., One Step Conversion of Crude Oil to Light Olefins using a Multi-Zone Reactor, Nat. Catal., 4 (2021) 233-241. DOI: 10.1038/s41929-021-00580-7.
  • Ochoa, A., Aramburu, B., Valle, B., Resasco, D.E., Bilbao, J., Gayubo, A.G., Castaño, P., Role of Oxygenates and Effect of Operating Conditions in the Deactivation of a Ni Supported Catalyst During the Steam Reforming of Bio-oil, Green Chem., 19 (2017) 4315-4333. DOI: 10.1039/C7GC01432E. 
  • Hita, I., Arabiourrutia, M., Olazar, M., Bilbao, J., Arandes, J.M., Castaño, P., Opportunities and Barriers for Producing High Quality Fuels from the Pyrolysis of Scrap Tires, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev., 16 (2016) 745-759. DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2015.11.081.
  • Albo, J., Alvarez-Guerra, M., Castaño, P., Irabien, A., Towards the Electrochemical Conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Methanol, Green Chem., 17 (2015) 2304-2324. DOI: 10.1039/C4GC02453B.
  • Valle, B., Castaño, P., Olazar, M., Bilbao, J., Gayubo, A.G., Deactivating Species in the Transformation of Crude Bio-Oil with Methanol into Hydrocarbons on a HZSM-5 Catalyst, J. Catal., 285 (2012) 304-314. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcat.2011.10.004. 
  • Van Herk, D., Castaño, P., Makkee, M., Moulijn, J.A., Kreutzer, M.T., Catalyst Testing in a Multiple-Parallel, Gas-Liquid, Powder-Packed Bed Microreactor. Appl. Catal. A, Gen., 365 (2009) 199-206. DOI: 10.1016/j.apcata.2009.06.010.

Education

  • Postdoc, Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), 2007-2009
  • PhD, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 2006
  • MSc, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 2004
  • BSc, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 2002

Professional Profile

  • Associate Professor, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 2013-2019
  • Assistant Professor (Ramon y Cajal Researcher), University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 2009-2013
  • Volunteer Teacher, Vocational Training School of Diogo Vaz (São Tomé and Principe, Africa). http://stpenergy.blogspot.com/  
  • Research Assistant,  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2001
  • Research Assistant, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2000

Scientific and Professional Membership

Awards

  • I&EC Early Career Fellow Award of the American chemical society (ACS), Industrial & Engineering Chemistry (I&EC) Division (April 2020)
  • Young Researcher Medal in Chemical Engineering, Royal Academy of Engineering (RAING), Madrid (November 2018).
  • Young Researcher Award, Spanish National Association of Chemists and Chemical Engineers (ANQUE), Madrid (June 2014).
 

KAUST Affiliations