On April 30^th of 2019, a group of 26 young students from Escola Secundária Dr Joaquim Gomes Ferreira Alves (ESDJGFA) visited the Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, welcomed by the Director Madalena Dias. The students were guided by Rita Ruivo Marques and Joaquim Faria and assisted by Carla Orge, Marta Barbosa and Nuno Moreira, members of the LSRE-LCM.

This activity is carried out in the framework of the research project Water Circle, developed every year in schools by Rita Ruivo Marques with a group of 180 students from 7^th to 9^th grades. Under the supervision of Isabel Menezes, from the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE), and Joaquim Faria, the Water Circle project is a joint collaboration between CIIE from the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences (FPCEUP) and LSRE-LCM - Department of Chemical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP) of the University of Porto.

The Water Circle project, implemented for the first time in 2016, consists of an educational programme for knowledge transfer between universities and schools, based on scientific work developed at higher education institutions in the particular domain of water management and remediation. The project’s main purpose is to promote students citizenship and participation informed by scientific knowledge. Moreover, the researchers’ contribution to a specific topic can be increased through the mediation of an educational project that brings closer science and society.

During the visit, the students can see how research is being developed in the scope of water remediation and are allowed to discuss with researchers, which is a key part of their preparation for the last activity of the school year - the Forum InvestigAmbiental. At this forum, experts from different technical and social domains are invited to discuss with students about their concerns and proposals developed to address the problems identified during their work in this project. One of the guest speakers on the last edition was Ana Rita Ribeiro from LSRE-LCM as researcher on wastewater monitoring and remediation.

On May 2^nd, at the forum InvestigAmbiental2019, some commitments were established. One of the most significant was to have the students’ letter, in which they ask for clarification and action about particular emerging pollutants that are being detected in drinking water, delivered by António Nóvoa as Permanent Delegate of Portugal to UNESCO to the Director-General Audrey Azoulay.

The students’ visit and the forum InvestigAmbiental2019 were supported by LSRE-LCM.

Photography: Visit to the Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM - Bruno Machado; Fórum InvestigAmbiental2019 - Students from the Multimedia Professional Course at ESDJGFA

Other articles: https://noticias.up.pt/investigadora-da-u-porto-promove-gestao-eficiente-da-agua-junto-dos-jovens/

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.