One of my two current main research interests, which serves as basis for this project, is related to smart system as a new technology and it is based on nanoparticles approach from the fundamental and implementation point of view. The other one deals with the study and implementations on harvesting system and energy extraction by salinity difference in water. In each one of these two fields I have made important contributions (see below). A Consolidator Grant will consolidate my career as group leader, which has recently been officially restarted by the extremely competitive Ramón y Cajal program, with 175 grants for more than 2800 applications (start: Nov. 2015). I include here some highlights of my career, patents and publications divided by my career period.
Management positions in private companies
After obtaining my BSc in electronic engineering in 1997, I left the bio mechanical’s group of the university, where I had been working 2 years as a scientific designer, to join two international technology companies. I was hired by a headhunter to held different high-responsibility posts, starting as a regional manager in Ericsson and as a senior executive in Telefónica. During those 6 years I had successfully reached important goals in different job functions as a leader in many work teams. In 2003 I decided to return to my early passion in research activities with a grant associated to a research fellowship.
Early Stage Researcher
Fellowship PhD period My pre-doctoral stage with a fellowship was sponsored by the international Oil Company Repsol Corporation and dealt with the synthesis and design of a smart magnetic fluid to be applied in the automobile industry through smarts dampers. During this period, I was not able to publish any research according to the confidentiality agreement but I successfully registered 8 patents in this area, 2 of them actually are granted by REPSOL S.A. Working in this project boosted my motivation even further. It was a challenge and I was eager to deliver high quality result in short time and it gave me the possibility to discusses continually with the manager of the Research & Development department of the company. Some of the highlighted results were placed in this two patent granted: Nº EPO7119395.7 “Fluido Magnetorreológico (fmr)” (6/10/2006) and Nº P200801895 “Fluido Magnetorreológico” (8/06/2008)
After patenting our results, I could started the publications of the research in peer review journals, dealing with smart fluids and its applications. Thanks to the innovation showed during 2007 in my predoctoral stage I received the award “Emilio Herrera Linares”, from the Universidad de Granada. This recognition gave me a high impact visibility in the community and the next year, I was given another recognition in smart fluid in the “Ciencia en Accion” event. One of the most ground-breaking idea was the design of a “smart footwear” with magnetic nanoparticles inside, registered at the end of 2008. This great idea came at the same time with Nike and Adidas, which did the same thing but with active small damper, whereas my groundbreaking idea was only activated by pressure the footprint without extra power energy. It was registered in: EU. Patent PCT/ES2007/000266, WO2007125148 A1 “FOOTWEAR WITH SHOCK-ABSORBING EFFECT” (08/11/2007)
Intra-European postdoctoral period
Austria In this period, I worked with the prestigious researcher Dr. Otto Glatter (>200 papers > 6800 cites; h-i:47). (Overbeek Gold Medal 2013, ECIS; SAS2012 Guinier Prize) on nanostructures and light scattering instrument design. I deal and designed appropriate instruments and tools to characterize different colloidal system, solid-gel transition, liquid, crystal and arrested systems. During this stay I led to succeed the design of a new device to measure high concentrated and arrested systems. For almost three years I published six peer review papers in high impact journals like Langmuir and Soft Matter. In three of them I am the first author and the one that was written only with my post-doc colleagues is my most cited paper (over 130). Some of the result of this research was placed in the publication below: “Lipid transfer in oil-in-water isasome emulsions: influence of arrested dynamics of the emulsion droplets entrapped in a hydrogel”.GR Iglesias et al. (2013) Langmuir 29 (50),15496-15502. (IF 4.384) “Monoolein: a magic lipid?” CV Kulkarni et al. PCCP (2011) 13 (8), 3004-3021 (IF 3.573) “Interactions between large colloids and surfactants”. GR Iglesias et al. Soft Matter (2011) 7 (10), 4619-4622. (IF 4.390)
Reintegration period: Spain
In this period, I joined the group of Prof. Dr. Delgado (>200 papers > 5700 cites; h-i=35) working in a European Project EU-CAPMIX, in collaboration with United Kingdom (MAST-CARBON INT. Ltd), the Nederland (WETSUS), Poland and Italy (Milano) as well. The challenge of the project was to obtain energy from salinity difference about which we have published more than ten peer review papers and one Patent. Currently I am the co-adviser of a PhD student in this area. An important contribution of my work was to find the specific material for the optimization of the energy extracted and the reduction of the leakage. Furthermore, I designed a prototype for the validation of the theory and how we can scale up this technique. Some results are showed in the publications below: “Stacking of capacitive cells for electrical energy production by salinity exchange” GR Iglesias et al (2016) J. of Power Sources. 318, 283-290. (IF 6.333) “Materials selection for optimum energy production by double layer expansion methods” GR Iglesias et al (2014) J. of Power Sources 261, 371-377. (IF 6.333)
Simultaneously, I had been collaborating with my PhD supervisors in a “University-Company Project” dealing with smart damper, to be used in a high quality 8 Kg “washing machine”, property of Fagor Electrodomésticos Company. I was in charge of the design of the prototype and the smart fluid used, placed in two granted patents (first author): PCT/ES2013/070443 “Fluidos magnetorreológicos con modalidad extrema” (2014) P2013300647 “Amortiguador de fricción basado en elastómeros magnéticos” (2013) “Friction damper based on magnetic elastomers” In addition, I have started two common collaborations as an independent researcher, one with the electronic group in the design of small solar panel for satellites, and the other one with the (LabIC) group of the University of Granada. The latter is based on another groundbreaking idea based, again, with magnetic nanoparticles immersed in pavement construction. Imagine the possibility of a self-healing pavement with the application of a magnetic field when the service life is close to end. Also, the mechanical behavior of the road could be changed as desired. These research of the design of a novel “asphalt binder” with magnetic particles and a “self-healing material” is an ongoing collaboration. Currently we have published four publications and two patents. The first publication and patent of this collaboration are showed below: “Development of Mechanomutable asphalt binders for the construction of smart pavements” 84, 100-109 Materials & Design 2015. (IF 3.997) PCT/ES2014/071002 “Ligante modificado con propiedades mecánicas controlables por campos magnéticos” “Binder modified with mechanical properties controllable by magnetic fields”
Finally, driven by the desire to have a deeper impact on society, I have recently started a focused effort in the area of health and life science with a new line research in the group, about the uses of magnetic nanoparticles as a drug delivery and hyperthermia treatment. This research is very exciting and close to the actual proposed project. Most recently, I have finished the implementation of a low cost device for magnetic hyperthermia experiment and just published four peer review papers
Researcher: H-3415-2012; orcid.org/0000-0002-5623-1516
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