Mónia Martins won the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) Excellence Award for the Best Doctoral Thesis in the area of Thermodynamics and Transport Properties. The work entitled Studies for the Development of New Separation Processes with Terpenes and Their Environmental Distribution gave new insights on separation processes for this class of compounds of enormous relevance in cosmetic, pharmaceutical or food industries.

The award-winning work, guided by Prof. João Coutinho from CICECO at UA, and Prof. Simão Pedro Pinho from LSRE-LCM/CIMO at IPB, is related to the extraction of terpenes from natural sources and their subsequent separation and purification as well as to their fate in the environment. The evaluation committee highlighted the originality of the studied topic and methodology followed, innovation, industrial relevance, and scientific impact of the work.

Dr. Mónia Martins is currently Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Associate Laboratories LSRE-LCM and CICECO - Institute of Materials of Aveiro where she has been developing new solvents with applications on metal extraction or for the separation and purification of bioactive compounds.

The 2019 Excellence Award will be presented next June at the 26^th Thermodynamics Conference, in Huelva, where Dr. Mónia Martins will deliver an invited talk.

The 17th edition of "Mostra Universidade do Porto" took place at Largo Amor de Perdição (near Clérigos Tower and Cordoaria Garden) and started with great expectation of the organizarion. For the first time Mostra U.Porto goes out and opens in Porto downtown!

From April 4 to 7, the general public and in particular school-age children may find and experience in the same place the University's educational offer and the highlight for research carried out in different scientific knowledge areas.

Representing one of the Research Centers of the University of Porto, the Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM has interactive activities of scientific experimentation and demonstration focused on pre-university participants but also for recent graduates who wish to pursue studies in the field of chemical engineering.

According to the organization's data almost 20.000 people visited Mostra U.Porto, which exceeded the expectations and represented a growth of about 5.000 people compared to last year's edition.

LSRE-LCM thanks to researchers who participate in this U.Porto event by making possible annually for the LSRE-LCM be present during the 4 days!

You can access the event's website here: https://www.mostra.up.pt/

More information about the balance and video of the 17th Mostra da U.Porto:
https://noticias.up.pt/mostra-da-u-porto-2019-levou-20-mil-pessoas-ao-centro-da-cidade/